JOANNA LUMLEY’S DANUBE
Friday 23 May 2025, iTV, 9pm
Joanna Lumley returns to our screens with another unforgettable travelogue, this time following the Danube — Europe’s most international river — as it weaves through ten countries, shaping the continent’s history, culture and identity. Starting where the river is barely more than a stream beneath the pine trees of Germany’s Black Forest, she embarks on a grand, meandering journey all the way to the Black Sea. It’s a route soaked in stories and steeped in power, having served as a frontier for empires, a vital trade route, and a silent witness to centuries of European transformation. At the source, Joanna is visibly moved as she gazes upon the statue of Danuvius, the Roman god of rivers, noting how this waterway has carried people, goods, armies and ideas over millennia — “completely dazzling,” as she puts it.
In Episode One, we follow Joanna through Germany and Austria, where the contrasts are as rich as the landscapes are beautiful. She makes a whimsical stop at the birthplace of the cuckoo clock before exploring the dramatic Danube Gorge in Bavaria. There’s warmth and humour in her encounters — a nun brewing beer, a pioneering group of gay folk dancers in lederhosen — and there’s depth, too, as she traces the cultural threads that bind these regions to the river. Arriving in Austria, she’s enchanted by the Wachau Valley’s vineyards and finally fulfils a lifelong wish to hear the Vienna Boys Choir live. Vienna itself prompts reflections on its artistic giants — Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Klimt — a roll call of cultural legacy that still echoes through the city’s elegant streets.
But perhaps the most touching moment comes at a simple café in Vienna, created as a haven for older people to gather, bake, chat and care for one another. Here Joanna meets Marianne, the woman behind the initiative, and the scene takes a more intimate turn. “We are not finished,” Joanna says, drawing on her own experience as a grandmother. “We’ve got love to give, skills.” It’s a moving reminder that community and connection matter just as much as architecture and history. As the episode closes, it’s not just the river that stays with you, but the stories — personal, local, deeply human — that continue to flow from its banks.
