INTERVIEW
Funnywoman Dawn French takes us on a tour of her home turf, revealing how becoming a grandma has changed her life and why she’s having to squeeze a knee operation into her busy schedule
It seems perfectly fitting that an encounter with Dawn French, one of the country’s funniest women, involves several comedy moments. We meet in a cosy tea shop, up in the hills, not far from her home in Cornwall. Due to a rail strike and a local driver who made several wrong turns, it’s taken seven hours to get here. I am 30 minutes late.
Dawn is beside herself – not in a diva way – but because she feels I’ve been horribly put out.
‘Oh no… we should have done a Zoom,’ she says. ‘But I really wanted you to see how beautiful it is here. This café has the most incredible view over Cornwall.’ We step outside into a sudden thick fog. Not even the cars in the car park are visible. She looks momentarily stricken, then – in unison – we burst out laughing.
Back in the café, we discuss Dawn’s latest book, The Twat Files, over homemade scones. There’s an initial scuffle over what goes on first: jam or cream. (‘You will be arrested in Cornwall if you put cream first,’ she says. ‘It has to be jam.’) Then Dawn, who turns 66 this month, tells me how cathartic it has been to lay bare all her most embarrassing, awkward and humiliating moments in both her book and on her tour, Dawn French is a Huge Twat. The name, she admits, has been somewhat divisive (‘in my family it was seen as having a bit of bite, but not an offensive word’), but the tour, which kicked off last year to sell out audiences, has been a huge success.
The book contains even more anecdotes from Dawn’s life, and is not just laugh-out-loud funny but is also an invaluable insight into the woman who shot to fame in 1982, aged 25, and who, along with her best friend Jennifer Saunders, has gone on to success as a writer, comedian and actor.
‘Oh yes, I’m a national treasure,’ she says with a wry smile. ‘But what am I really? I’m someone who works, who makes mistakes, who messes up, behaves badly, needs to have a word with herself at times. This isn’t something I could have done 20, 30 years ago. First off, I wouldn’t have had all the mistakes to cringe over, but also I wouldn’t have wanted to reveal certain things about myself. I’d have been too embarrassed, felt too ashamed. But the older you get, the less you care. You’ve learnt to accept yourself, to forgive others and forgive yourself. And just let it go – and laugh.’
Not wanting to spoil any surprises, the stories – told in Dawn’s inimitable warm, chummy style – are about epic fails in movie auditions, awkward encounters with the likes of Madonna and Dustin Hoffman, hideous outfits, moments of bad judgement, hubris, greed and unrequited crushes on other actors. The de
