Dawn French

Video - Five Minutes With: Dawn French

Comedian and actor Dawn French talks to Matthew Stadlen about the pressure to be funny, her life philosophy, being short, bossy and cheerful and how she enjoyed "breaking" Jennifer Saunders' legs.

Dawn French: Lenny Henry and I are still best friends

Comedy star Dawn French said she remained "the best of mates" with ex-husband Lenny Henry despite the couple's divorce earlier this week.

A special edition of the macabre comedy thriller from The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. It centres on a television location manager, Shearsmith, who has taken his camera with him to the abandoned ruins of the fictional Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital. He is investigating stories about the ghost of its evil former governess, Edwina Kenchington (Eileen Atkins), for a Most Haunted style programme. In true Psychoville style, the episode is both hilarious and unsettling. Four eccentric tales of terror unfold, each featuring one of the regular characters from the series - the bitter, one-handed children's entertainer Mr Jelly (Shearsmith), the deranged midwife Joy (Dawn French) and her baby, the blind millionaire Mr Lomax (Pemberton), and the serial-killer enthusiast David Sowerbutts (Pemberton again) and his mother. The Mr Jelly one - which sees him opening the door to two mysterious trick-or-treaters - is the strangest, and the funniest. Artfully written and well acted, like the previous award-winning series, this may at times be too odd and too disturbing for some viewers to stomach.

The Comic Strip: 30 years on

Dawn French et al look back on the halcyon days of Paul Raymond's Revue Bar.

Dawn French and Lenny Henry granted 'quickie' divorce

Dawn French and Lenny Henry were divorced today on the grounds of his 'unreasonable behaviour'.

Dawn French's debut novel

An exclusive extract from 'A Tiny Bit Marvellous'.

Dawn French interview

In the last year, Dawn French has separated from her husband, written her first novel and discovered that she'd much rather go for a walk than play the London Palladium.

The first thing we see tonight is the notice next to the front door. "Roger have you got: phone, wallet, house keys, bin bag, diary . . ." it reads. Has this always been there, or is it a side-effect of the momentous events of last week? Either way, things have changed in the house where our touching, multi-layered domestic drama has unfolded over the past weeks, and they come to a head tonight. Roger feels Val has been melodramatic over their recent ructions, not something you could accuse the series of. Only by a gentle drip-feed of hints have we gathered the extent of Roger and Val's hidden stresses, dealing with a current bereavement and with reminders of an old but terrible one. As usual, Dawn French and Alfred Molina play it to perfection.

This quirky minimalist comedy series starring Dawn French and Alfred Molina as the Stevensons, a middle-aged couple settled in a comfortable post-work daily routine, is notable mainly for two things: first, there are no supporting actors and second, they never leave their house.

If this might seem claustrophobic and controlled it's not what French - once part of the French & Saunders duo - set out to achieve when she thought up the idea. Basically she wanted to set it in real time, with just two actors, and explore a functional, good marriage rather than the usual flawed and desperately bad one. They're hermetically sealed in, that's all.

When the couple come home from their separate jobs - she's a food technology teacher and he's a botanist working in a winter garden - they simply settle down and chat about their day. Tonight, Val finds Roger lying mute in the spare room. She tries to reach him but it dawns on them both that there's more to this crisis then the recent news about his father.

Roger reveals that, while alone in the house, he's taken up grief-counselling advice and written out an idealised self-image. So far, so ok. But then he does what most of us can only have nightmares about. He's mistakenly emailed the whole personal, heartfelt outpouring to the entire management team at his work. Hugely embarrassed, both he and Val try to salvage the situation - but will it just make matters worse?

And for the first time in the series, somebody leaves the house. Well, it has to be one of them, but which one? And why? Oh, the tension...