Dawn French

Video: Dawn French reveals weight loss secrets

Dawn French, talking to BBC Breakfast, reveals that she has lost weight since shooting the second series of Roger and Val Have Just Got In.

The second series of this bleak comedy has been a long time coming, as if the BBC were as ambivalent as audiences and critics after its August 2010 debut. However, this warm and subtly funny two-hander has much to recommend it. Played out in real time, it follows the titular married couple as they return home and discuss their day, and its cleverness is how their discourse about minutiae cannily shows us their true feelings. It's gently revelatory, with no bursting into tears or laying down the law, which is refreshing in itself. Alfred Molina and Dawn French are faultless as neurotic botanist Roger and fretful teacher Val, with French dialling down her comedy persona to render her a believeable suburban matron. Long-marrieds will relate ruefully to their endless gentle bickering - tonight, upon returning home from a family wedding, Val harps on about Roger's ill-timed use of a hotel bathroom that prevented her enjoying the complimentary bath oils. If at times Emma and Beth Kilcoyne's script veers towards insipidness, the piece is unique and well-acted enough to get away with it. Tonight's first of eight episodes sees Roger and Val's comfortable universe disrupted by the arrival of an important letter.

Dawn French: 'I'm still quite fond of my fat self!'

You'd expect that losing an astonishing 7 and a half stone would be a load off Dawn French's mind as well as her body. Yet the 55-year-old star has confessed she is not entirely happy about her slimline shape.

Fans of understated comedy will be delighted by the return of Roger & Val Have Just Got In, in which Alfred Molina and Dawn French trade tender blows as a childless middle-aged couple dealing with the minutiae and enormity of everyday existence.

As before, each slow-burning episode consists of a digressive exchange between the pair as they rattle around their careworn house, with the viewer cast as a silent eavesdropper gradually assembling the details of their unseen outside lives.

And though I'm loath to describe it as a gentle comedy - so often a pejorative euphemism - it really is apt in this case. Humour and pathos arise naturally from the comfortable eccentricities of its endearing protagonists, whose unwavering love and support of each other makes for a refreshing change from the usual antagonism of sitcom marriages.

And yet despite that, there's nothing cosy about Roger & Val..., as an underlying sense of impending tragedy is never far from the surface. Indeed, in its own quiet way, it's one of the most ambitious comedies on TV, almost like the anti-Mrs Brown's Boys.

There's a recent trend for things to be well-made and performed but not funny - The Cafe seemed to just forget the jokes while Cricklewood Greats didn't seem to think they were weighty enough to include. Some people have been somewhat unfairly adding RAVHJGI into this bracket. Somewhat unfairly because, really, it's a sitcom that's not supposed to be funny. It is after all based around a couple who have never got over the death of their baby. The eye for detail in the dialogue and performances is what makes the show, little spaces, hints and drops. While you can appreciate the fact that Dawn French reins it in at all, Alfred Molina is brilliant.

How to avoid canned laughter in your Laugh Track script

We've just launched Laugh Track - a fantastic new comedy sitcom writing talent search which will be judged by none other than Dawn French.

Ab Fab was back with another so-so offering from Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, who never look tired in their respective parts, even if their scripts are occasionally lacklustre.

You can tell Saunders is missing her skits with Dawn French, because there were flashes of some very F&S-like sketches here, including an apparently pointless trip to the beauty salon, where a not-very-funny therapist took shot at Eddie's pampered life.

For a series that so often mocks the nepotism of the middle classes, there followed a lot of bit part-appearances by members of Saunders' daughter Beattie Edmonson's comedy troupe Lady Garden, but we'll skim over that.

After Eddie's hilarious attempts at speaking Danish in the Christmas episode, there were some slightly less amusing attempts to speak French and after the winning cameo from Sofie Grabol, there were slightly less endearing cameos from Emma Bunton, Lulu and La Roux.

Still, as the cast touched on everything from iPads to interns, there were enough funny moments to whet viewers' appetite for the Olympics special that will air later in the year.

Dawn French denies she has a gastric band

Super slimmer Dawn French has hit back furiously at speculation by Anne Diamond over whether she used a gastric band.

Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders did so well with their Christmas and New Year specials last year that they've been invited back. Listeners liked the way they talk to each other (occasionally tartly) as if they were in on the conversation. The guests are good too although you never quite know who's going to turn up. It could be Michael Palin, it might be Tracy Emin or even Clare Balding and her mum. Laughter is guaranteed. Ditto music.

Dawn French shows off her new svelte figure

She was often referred to as a 'roly-poly' comedienne at the height of her fame. But nowadays 'slimmed down' is a far more appropriate tag for Dawn French.