British Comedy Guide
Dawn French
Dawn French

Dawn French

  • 67 years old
  • Welsh
  • Actor, writer and comedian

Press clippings Page 31

Dawn French loving life after divorcing Lenny Henry

Looking out at the stunning St Catherine's Castle, Dawn French sat behind her desk in her sunny office on the Cornish coast and reflected on the phone call she'd just ended.

Fiona Cummins, Daily Record, 6th August 2011

Dawn French & Caroline Aherne for Loose Women?

Dawn French and Caroline Aherne and ex-Corrie fave Sally Lindsay are three of the stars being wooed by bosses looking to replace Kate Thornton and Zoe Tyler on Loose Women.

Simon Boyle, The Mirror, 11th July 2011

Dawn French reveals reasons behind her weight loss

She stunned fans earlier this month when she stepped out looking noticeably slimmer. And now Dawn French has revealed the reasons behind her astonishing four-and-a-half stone weight loss.

Sarah Bull, Daily Mail, 27th June 2011

Dawn French is dating again and open to marrying again

Comedian Dawn French has revealed her lovelife is back on track after her heartbreaking marriage break-up from Lenny Henry.

Mark Jeffries, The Mirror, 22nd June 2011

French took months to decide over Henry split

Dawn French spent months deliberating over whether she should end her marriage to Lenny Henry as they battled to salvage the relationship.

The Daily Express, 22nd June 2011

Dawn French loses five stone in a year & that's no joke

Dawn French, who once tipped the scales at 19 stone, looked a new woman at an awards ceremony in London.

Ben Todd, Daily Mail, 9th June 2011

This gem from last year was executive produced by Hugo Blick, the man behind BBC2's mighty thriller The Shadow Line. However, if you come to Roger and Val expecting dark violence and crushing suspense, you'll be terribly disappointed. It's more like Blick's previous series Marion & Geoff or Sensitive Skin, a muted, micro-observed domestic drama that has enough funny and absurd moments to qualify as sitcom, even if that tag feels all wrong. Alfred Molina and Dawn French are superb as a devoted but prickly married couple with a tragedy in their past that only emerges via hints over the course of the series. The plotting is understated, to put it mildly (tonight's opener is taken up with hunting for the guarantee for a broken vacuum cleaner), but also sweet, funny and very sad. If you missed it first time round, record the whole series - you won't regret it.

David Butcher, Radio Times, 1st June 2011

And now a blasphemous confession: Psychoville (BBC2) isn't for me. It's comedy horror for the Ocado demographic, as scary as finding your delivery man has broken the bottle of balsamic vinegar en route, a gross-out as entertaining as a commodified trick-or-treat soiree in the suburbs. A clown with Down's syndrome, anyone? Dawn French pasting mashed swede into a woman's paralysed mouth? An officious librarian haunted by a dancing spectre? Thanks, but no.

Psychoville warrants comparison with Gigglebiz, Justin Fletcher's sometimes scary sketch show. Think of Fletcher's truly menacing Dinah Lady or his crazed fitness fanatic Keith Fit. Genuinely terrifying - and with a punchline rate that Psychoville's mighty writers can only look on and despair. And that's on CBeebies. Mind you, I did like the way French got stabbed with a pencil. She'd been asking for that.

Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian, 6th May 2011

It would take more than a waistcoat full of explosives to kill off Psychoville's cast of grotesques.

Series two opens with a funeral for a clown, but as we say RIP to Mr Jolly - the children's entertainer-turned-suicide bomber - a new mystery arises concerning a missing locket belonging to the Ravenhill Mental Hospital's sadistic Nurse Kenchington.

Fans of Psychoville will know better than to expect this plotline to be solved in any conventional sense.

Instead, just gorge on the details as Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith carry on twisting the horror genre into unexpected shapes like so many balloon animals.

So we welcome back serial killer David Sowerbutts, angry clown Mr Jelly, Dawn French's bonkers midwife and toy collector Mr Lomax.

Imelda Staunton's secret agent returns too, chanelling the spirit of Judi Dench in the Bond movies and there's a new character to populate your nightmares: The Silent Singer.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 5th May 2011

A reminder of the much-loved, quintessentially English sitcom is combined with the story of how it came together and what the series, which first aired in 1994, achieved, as it followed the cheering misadventures of Dawn French's passionate country vicar. Cast members, including French ("the heart and soul of the show"), and creator/writer Richard Curtis spill the beans.

Simon Horsford, The Telegraph, 19th March 2011

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