DAWN & JEN
Back in the famous “white room” where Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French recorded their hit show French and Saunders, a huffy Dawn is landing a comedic – we hope – clout on Jennifer’s nose.
Almost 35 years after the BBC sketch show launched in 1987, she is reminding her comedy partner she was overlooked in the small matter of Jennifer’s later hit series Absolutely Fabulous.
The latter actually took root in French and Saunders, with Jennifer playing Edina Monsoon and Dawn playing her po-faced daughter Saffy – a part later snaffled by Julia Sawalha.
“Something I’ve always wanted to say to you,” snaps Dawn, deadpan.
“Remember that sketch where I played your daughter and then you took that sketch on and made a great big awardwinning sitcom out of it but you didn’t invite me to play the daughter at all? You used someone else. I just wanted to say...”
And then Dawn lands her perfectly timed pretend slap, knocking Jennifer clean off her seat.
All these years on, the best mates still have it (Ab Fab beef aside), and are making a nostalgic return to the white room to reminisce and ruminate about women in comedy.
In a new two-hour documentary, called Funny Women, showing on Gold, the pair discuss their own pioneering role in changing the female comedic landscape, and those who carried the baton before and since.
Back in the 1980s, when they took to the stage, there were very few.
“We could name every single other woman in comedy when we started out, which was about three others,” says Dawn, 63. “And then it became five others, then 12 others – and suddenly now you can’t even name everybody.
“There are so many women now working in comedy, which is great.
“I’m delighted, because how many men would be able to name every single other guy in comedy?
“They can’t, there’s too many. And they wouldn’t even stop to think about it.”
Even female roles were snatched by men, Jennifer, also 63, groans.
She says: “You had Alastair Sim playing the headmistress in St Trinian’s, Les Dawson being Hylda Baker basically, and even the Monty Pythons had someone being a dolly bird. The men took all the funny parts. I mean, come on.”
Dawn says: “We laughed a lot at that but now, when you reflect on it, it’s clear there wasn’t as much chance for women.”
It was this pair who helped win equality. After meeting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 1978, the girls – both from RAF backgrounds – didn’t initially like each other.
But they went on to become friends and attempt stand-up together.
After a faltering early start as the Menopause Sisters – with tampons dangling from their ears – they joined the alternative comedy scene, performing at London venue The Comedy Store.
There was some sister
hood to spur them on. Comedy star Victoria Wood put her arms around them after a show in Edinburgh, leading a young Jennifer to think: “We’ve made it.”
“She was so prolific, and so influential, and so supportive of us,” says Dawn. “When we had some bad reviews, she left us a note saying, ‘Ignore that. Keep going’. She was like a kindly sister, really.”
Victoria was right. The duo’s TV debut was soon made on The Comic Strip Presents alongside Adrian Edmondson – who was to become Jennifer’s husband. Then in 1985 came the sitcom Girls on Top with pioneers Tracey Ullman and Ruby Wax.
French and Saunders soon
got their own