Amandaland? For the best festive laughs, take a trip to Jennifer and Joannaland!

How absolutely gorgeous! Arguably the funniest sitcom special of the Christmas season, Amandaland reunited Joanna Lumley with Jennifer Saunders and unlimited champagne. Heaven, my darlings.

Dame Joanna told an audience on London’s South Bank last week that she strong-armed her co-star into accepting a cameo role in a one-off film and told him: ‘Do it or I’ll have to kill you.’

It’s no surprise that La Lumley, as world-weary grandmother Felicity, was so keen to have Jennifer play her younger sister Joan. In a show filled with laughs so big they’d make you snort sherry, ‘Flick’ had the best and ugliest jokes.

Even though she played Patsy in Ab Fab, she never achieved a bottom line as bad as the one that closes this half-hour episode. Following a story implicating Sir Mick Jagger as the father of her daughter Amanda (Lucy Punch), Felicity admitted: ‘I’ve slept with Mick once or twice but not in a way that could get you pregnant.’

This superbly constructed comedy romp takes the main characters out of London and whisks them away to a decrepit country pile outside Cirencester in the Cotswolds, the ancestral home of Amanda’s family. Turns out he’s not nouveau riche, but proper old money, the kind who smells like a wet laborer and drives a 1970s Volvo SUV.

In one of the few duff lines, Amanda’s neighbor Mal (Samuel Anderson) surveyed the Georgian façade and muttered: ‘Eat your heart out, Downton Abbey.’ In fact, the house belonged to Jilly Cooper rather than Lord Grantham. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Randy Rupert Campbell-Black chasing someone else’s wife on the tennis court.

Mal was acting as Amanda’s reluctant chauffeur; He was stopping on his journey west to pick up not only his mother, but also his scruffy friend and unpaid PA Anne, who was bitter about missing her own family Christmas after all flights to Dublin were cancelled. Mal and Anne were impressed by the grandeur as they made their way down the road, but Felicity didn’t care: ‘It’s only 11 acres and ha-ha.’

She bore the face of a woman determined to keep her word by attending a family meeting, more determined to hate every moment. Once known as an action figure in series such as The New Avengers and Sapphire And Steel, Lumley surprised everyone when he revealed his exceptional comic timing as an actor in Ab Fab.

The underlying darkness beneath the comedy in Amandaland suggests it could surprise us again if it tackles straight acting with a sombre attitude – something like the dementia drama Goodbye June with Helen Mirren, currently streaming on Netflix.

“That’s why I don’t go to therapy,” Felicity hissed, casting a withering glance at the old Christmas decorations on the lawn. ‘Some memories are best suppressed.’

Enter Saunders at this point. Wearing a pearl necklace and a blood-soaked apron like Mrs. Sweeney Todd would dress for a dinner party, she burst open the front door. “Oh dear,” he cried. ‘You caught me in the middle of the offal!’ From then on, Punch stepped back and almost took a supporting role on his own show. The main joke of Amandaland is usually how terrifying she is, how oblivious she is to other people’s emotions and how they perceive her.

But still, despite some well-timed laugh lines and even the excitement between him and Mal, he knew this was the Jen and Jo duo now.

What made this even better was the collaboration between the two noblewomen. This wasn’t a duel and they weren’t in competition. It was easy to believe that they were once a pair of sisters who really liked each other but, for complicated reasons, didn’t get together much anymore; This is perhaps the impression these actresses give about their real-life relationships.

Absolutely Fabulous stars Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley reunite for Christmas special

Samuel Anderson as Mal, main character Amanda’s downstairs neighbor, played by Lucy Punch

The ending had them sitting on hay bales in a barn, recalling the traumas of teenage debt. ‘Do you remember what they used to say to us on that terrible debutante tour?’ said Joan. ‘Great Hair… and Spare’ Felicity couldn’t resist giggling. ‘That’s actually pretty good.’ It was also a crude joke stolen from Shakespeare, which was pretty good and even older than the house. The mother gave herself away by breaking the wind while hiding behind floor-length curtains during a game of hide and seek.

Joan threw back the curtains and said: ‘Pick up with your own stake’ – a line from Hamlet where someone hides behind a curtain and ends up eating a kebab at the point of a sword.

There were countless other memorable touches: Joan scraped off the top layer of trout paste after a dog licked it, Amanda’s children called their grandmother GanGan, and the whole family stood to sing God Save the King.

The cleverest joke was the physical comedy of Punch, wearing leather trousers and a banner-sleeved blouse, like Jagger in his eyeliner era.

The makeover took on new meaning when Mel and Anne were seen whispering in the corridor after finding a pack of old photos showing heavily pregnant teenager Felicity in the Stones singer’s arms.

Surely Amanda can’t be Sir Mick’s love child? As they debated whether to show him his fingerprints, he beckoned them to the dinner table, sliding across the stone floor, thrusting his pelvis to the side and clapping his hands above his head.

It turned out how much she really resembles him, with her big lips and wide mouth.

If he wanted Satis-Fax-Shurn the resemblance could not be more obvious!