‘This planet is our everything'

Joanna Lumley on following conservationist Sacha Dench as she takes to the skies on a pioneering climate-change mission

- TESS LAMACRAFT

JOANNA LUMLEY AND THE HUMAN SWAN NEW MONDAY / ITV / 9PM / FACTUAL

Joanna Lumley has been standing up for the environment for decades. Earlier this year, she was photographed in a sea of rubbish to help highlight the impact household waste is having on our planet, as well as supporting a campaign to save a forest in Ethiopia from extinction.

Now the popular actor and presenter is continuing her mission to find ways to resolve the climate crisis in a new documentary, Joanna Lumley and the Human Swan.

The one-off is among several special ITV programmes for Climate Action Week, which runs from 1 November alongside COP26, the United Nations Climate Change conference, in Glasgow.

The show sees Joanna following along on land as Australian conservationist and adventurer Sacha Dench, aka ‘The Human Swan’, takes to the skies in her eco-electric powered paramotor to tour Britain’s coast in search of climate-change solutions.

TV Times caught up with Joanna, 75, to find out more…

How did the idea to collaborate with Sacha come about?

I had met Sacha once before and also followed her phenomenal human swan trip with the Bewick swans [in 2016, Sacha flew 7,000km from Arctic Russia to the UK in a paramotor as part of a campaign to draw attention to the plight of this endangered species].

So when a mutual friend told me that Sacha would be doing the Round Britain Climate Challenge, stopping to meet lots of people helping to make a difference, I asked ITV if we could follow her journey.