Dawn French

Dawn French was born on October 11 1957 in Holyhead, Wales.When she was 11 Dawn went to a weekly boarding school in Plymouth, partly funded by the RAF in which her father served.Trained to be a drama teacher at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, where she met Jennifer Saunders.

This led onto one of the most successful partnerships in British comedy today; French and Saunders. Jennifer spotted an advert for comediennes at The Comic Strip in 1980 and they applied as a duo. 'We were just the first creatures with boobs to walk through the door,' she joked.

In 1985 she starred with, Jennifer, Ruby Wax (after meeting her at a Christmas party) and at Lennys suggestion Tracey Ullman, in ITV's Girl's on Top Dubbed to be the female version of 'The Young Ones'. The show ran for 2 series until 1987 they got their own TV sketch show - the cunningly titled French and Saunders. Towards the early 90s, both comediennes pursued solo projects.

One of Dawn most famous solo projects was 'The Vicar of Dibley', which although the series 'ended' 5 years ago at Christmas 2004 they did an Only Fools and Horses with a Christmas special. The show was written by Richard Curtis (Blackadder, Love Actually) Dawn French plays Geraldine, a female vicar who comes to the St Barnabas Church in the small village of Dibley.

Dawn has been interested in promoting the issue of Big Being Beautiful and has produced two knitting pattern books; Big Knits, and Great Big Knits with designer Sylvie Soudan. She now has a significant role in the managing of her fashion business for ‘big girls’, Sixteen47, and their designer range French and Teague.

Dawn lives with her husband Lenny Henry and their daughter in Berkshire.


In Vicar of Dibley

Very Earlt Dawn and Jen


Biography

  • The Wheels on the Bus

  • Wild West

  • Pongwiffy

  • Ted and Alice

  • David Copperfield

  • Let Them Eat Cake

  • Watership Down

  • The Vicar of Dibley

  • The Legends of Treasure Island

  • Murder Most Horrid

  • Scoff

  • French & Saunders

  • Girls on Top

  • Comic Relief

  • The Comic Strip Presents

  • Look at the State We're In!

  • Absolutely Fabulous

  • The Full Wax

  • Jim Henson's

  • The The Lenny Henry Show

  • The Young Ones

  • Jackanory

  • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

  • The Sitcom Story

  • French and Saunders Live

News
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Did you know?
  • Dawn was said to have been highly embrassed about her impersonaton of Harry Potter in the last Comic relief takes. As she was later took a role in the last Harry Potter movie and had toface the actors she and Jennifer had impersonated!
  • The Vicar of Dibley was the most popular comedy show of 1999 won an International Emmy.
  • Fellow Comic Rik Mayall was said to have advised Dawn in her early career to go back to teaching, because their material was crap teaching was the career path she originally chose!
  • Dibley is filmed in the tiny Village of Turville, Buckinghamshire.

Researched from various sources on the net, Local Comedy Connections accept no responsiblity for the accuracy of this article.

And as Madonna & Britney, Jen looks slightly scared!

Murder Most Horrid

2005 Text Local Comedy Connections • Home BBC • Return to Stand Up • Comic Relief • Red Nose Day 2005

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