One of the UK’s best-loved personalities and most successful comedy exports, Joanna Lumley pursues a life-long dream to track down the elusive and beautiful Northern Lights.

Comedy icon Joanna Lumley grew up in tropical Malaysia, and as a little girl had never seen snow or felt cold. Inspired by the fairy tales and picture books of the North, full of trolls and snow queens, she always longed to make this journey. But she could never have guessed what a challenging, epic, diverse and absorbing arctic adventure lay ahead of her. Realising her childhood dream, she travels North across the Arctic Circle, up through Norway and finally to Svalbard, the most northerly permanently inhabited place on Earth, where she has to cope with temperatures approaching minus 30° C.

Joanna’s journey takes her from train to boat and husky-sled to snowmobile as she is pulled ever northwards by what she calls ‘the strongest point of the compass’. As the anticipation mounts so does Joanna’s trepidation that her Arctic journey will be in vain and she won’t get to see the Northern Lights.

She explores the romantic fjords of Lofoten and learns to ride a snowmobile, speeding across endless expanses of Lapland tundra with a Sami herdsman in search of his reindeer. On nearing the Arctic Ocean, she spends the night in a hotel made entirely of ice. The fascinating people she meets on her journey north fire Joanna’s passion to see the Northern Lights still further, telling her about the unique spectacle and power of this true wonder of the world.