In September last year, some filming took place on our street in Highbury, north London. This isn’t unusual for a couple of reasons. The first is practical: the street I live in is a particularly quiet thoroughfare thanks to a complex one-way system; hardly any cars drive down it, making it ideal for quiet, undisturbed filming.

The second: I am surrounded by media luvvie types – like myself – the sort who let film crews into their homes in return for a bit of extra cash or the possibility of showing off their swanky kitchen islands before putting their properties on the market.

We’ve had ITV film some of their idents (the mini-films they air to advertise their own channel) on our street; Rosamund Pike (a local) has filmed a Hollywood film around the corner and I can hardly pop out to the shops without bumping into Paul Mescal going for a run, showing off his Gladiator II honed pecs.

So I didn’t bat an eyelid when a crew, with accompanying gazebos for catering, a trailer with Portaloos, and men with rolls of gaffer tape, set up on our road. Walking the dog, I was stopped by a polite runner asking if I could wait a minute so that I didn’t ruin the scene being filmed. I asked him what the show was. ‘Well, I’m not meant to tell you,’ he said, ‘but as I’m causing an inconvenience I will. Do you remember Motherland? Well, this is a spin-off called Amandaland.’ It was only then I looked up from my cockapoo and saw the actress Lucy Punch with Joanna Lumley getting ready for their scene.

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Pictured: Lucy Punch (left) and Joanna Lumley (right), stars of BBC series Amandaland

Pictured: Cast and crew gather as filming takes place in Highbury, north London

So-Ha? No-Ha! What Harlesden really thinks about Amandaland

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I couldn’t get home fast enough to tell my 16-year-old daughter, Celia, who was hysterical with excitement. ‘You are kidding me? In our street!?’ she squealed. Motherland is one of her very favourite shows and the monstrous, snobby Amanda – as many fans will attest – the best character. To think they had chosen our lovely, tree-lined Islington oasis as their setting. The writers had obviously decided that Amanda needed to leave stuffy Chiswick in west London and travel north to where there are better restaurants, fancier delis, and – frankly – a more classy set of people. This has always been an area where barristers (we’re walking distance from the Inns of Court) have chosen to live, where novelists rub shoulders with TV directors and where you bump into Nigel Slater in the local butcher.

Except, as we then all rushed back to rubber-neck the filming, we noticed something strange. The production crew had left a tipped-over shopping trolley on the pavement; rubbish had been strewn outside Amanda’s flat. What was going on?

Then I spotted that the house they’d chosen as Amanda’s new abode was, well, one of the more scruffy ones in the street. Still very nice, and probably worth the £1.6 million that an average house in the N5 Highbury postcode fetches, but in need of a lick of paint.

The BBC press release, announcing the show, laid bare the full horror: “Post her divorce, Amanda has had to downsize and up sticks to South Harlesden, or as the Estate Agent calls it SoHa”. So, the alpha mum has fallen on hard times and the location scouts thought our street – with some artful set dressing – was downmarket enough to stand in for the area around Wormwood Prison.

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Pictured: Filming of Amandaland in Highbury, north London – Lucy Punch steps out of the yellow camper van

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Pictured: The production crew leaves a tipped-over shopping trolley on the pavement

The funniest moments from the premiere episode of Amandaland

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Excuse me! But that is a slur on the good name of Highbury, an area of London with more wildly overpriced cinnamon rolls and cortado coffees than Notting Hill, frankly.

I nearly spat out my wine when I saw in the first episode that Amanda’s mother, played by Joanna Lumley, comes around with a “little tuck parcel from Waitrose, now that you’ve only got a Tesco Metro”. What?! Highbury’s main supermarket *is* a Waitrose, though some of us shop in the ludicrously expensive Yield delicatessen at the end of the road, which sells biodynamic wines and those delicious jarred Brindisa Navarrico Chickpeas. Or we pop to the Ottolenghi, a short walk away on Upper street.

Are we as swanky as Chelsea? No. Do properties fetch as much as Belgravia? Nowhere near. But this is one of the very nicest corners of London – whatever Amandaland might suggest.

The sleight of hand when it comes to the location, however, does not diminish from some very sharp writing. Amanda may have suffered from a messy divorce and collapse in circumstances, but she remains very funny.