Lucy Punch has confessed that she was too anxious to read reviews of Amandaland, as it marked her debut in a leading role. She expressed significant concern about how the show would be received by audiences.

The 47-year-old actress portrays the main character, Amanda, in the BBC series, which is set to release its Christmas special soon.

Amandaland centers around Lucy’s character and acts as a sequel to the popular series Motherland, which was broadcast from 2016 until 2022.

Lucy revealed that she felt a surge of panic when producers initially proposed the spin-off, which would elevate her to the lead role.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, she shared, “I anticipated viewers might feel let down because it wasn’t Motherland, and I feared they would miss the show’s iconic, beloved characters.”

‘People love to hate Amanda. Putting that character front of centre, would it work? Would people care about her? I genuinely had a lot of fear about how it would be received.’

Lucy Punch has said that she was too scared to read Amandaland reviews as she’d never had a leading role before – and says she had ‘a lot of fear’ over how the series would be received

The actress, 47, plays the titular character of Amanda in the BBC show – which will soon air its Christmas special

She added: ‘I’ve never been front and centre before!’ 

When Amandaland came out in February she says she was ‘far too nervous’ to read the reviews but when they turned out to be great her agent sent her some.

She added that she was then ‘so grateful’ the spin-off had happened as it was a ‘huge deal’ for her.

Just last week the BBC dropped the first trailer for the highly-anticipated Amandaland Christmas special. 

British comedy series Amandaland hit our screens on BBC One back in February. 

Amandaland follows the life of a recently divorced mum called Amanda who is trying to juggle looking after her children, a new relationship and friendships with the parents at her kid’s school. 

‘Life after Motherland. Downsizing, facing the horror of modern teens – not even an alpha mum can do it alone. And then there’s her mother… Starring Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley,’ BBC iPlayer’s synopsis reads.  

Fans were over the moon when it was revealed in October that there would be a festive special involving Amanda Hughes (Lucy Punch), her mum Felicity Sanderson (Joanna Lumley) and Anne Flynn (Philippa Dunne). 

The first look sees Amanda, her family and pals Mal (Samuel Anderson) and Anne head over to aunt Joan’s (Jennifer Saunders) country house.

Lucy has said that she felt panicked when producers first suggested the spin-off to her where she would be promoted to the show’s lead

Joan is over the moon to see Amanda, but Amanda’s mum Felicity doesn’t appear to be that excited to see her. 

In one clip, Amanda can be seen giving her aunt a gift, but a shocked Anne asks her: ‘Didn’t I just gift you that?’ 

Amanda simply replies: ‘Yes.’

In another scene Anne can be seen telling Mal: ‘I really think Amanda deserves to know.’  

She pops her head around the corner of the door and asks: ‘What do I deserve to know?’ 

Back in October, speaking on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show, Joanna said: ‘I’m just about to start another series of Amandaland which was the spin-off from Motherland, which was a gorgeous, wild success.

‘Clever, clever Lucy Punch. We’re just about to start seven more episodes and one is a Christmas special for this year.’

Amandaland is written by Holly Walsh, Helen Serafinowicz, Barunka O’Shaughnessy and Laurence Rickard.

The show is directed by Simon Bird and Alyssa McClelland.

The comedy is a spin-off of popular sitcom Motherland, which ran 19 episodes across three seasons between 2016 and 2022.

Motherland was created and written by Sharon Horgan, Graham Linehan, Helen Serafinowicz and Holly Walsh. 

She told The Times: ‘I expected there to be a sort of disappointment of it not being Motherland. And missing all those brilliant characters, the beloved characters in that show…’

It followed the lives of a group of parents whose children all attended the same school.

Anna Maxwell Martin played protagonist Julia Johnstone, Diane Morgan played Liz, Paul Ready played Kevin Brady and Tanya Moodie played Meg.

Since the first series aired back in January, Amandaland has averaged 6.4million views and has become the BBC’s second biggest comedy launch. 

The Amandaland Christmas Special will air on Christmas Day at 9:15pm on BBC One and iPlayer.