My friendship with Saunders is very secure, says French
DawnFrench talks to HannahStephenson abouther friendship with Jennifer Saunders, her firstnovel infive years and the trials of life during a pandemic.
DESPITE LOCKDOWN, Dawn French, comedian, actress and novelist, has welcomed the chance to get together with her old mucker, Jennifer Saunders.
They’ve been reunited for a podcast, are appearing in Kenneth Branagh’s movie remake of the Agatha Christie thriller Death On The Nile, due out in December, and have kept in touch during the pandemic, she reveals.
“My first bit of ‘ back to work’ was with Jennifer. As soon as we were allowed to meet up at a great distance from each other, with a wall of cake in- between, we met up and devised a series for Audible called French & Saunders: T** ting About.
“We see each other all the time anyway as friends. We’re not very good on Zoom. I’d rather be on the phone to her or we text each other a lot. If we don’t get to see each other much, we just pick up where we left off. There’s never a guilty gap. It’s not a friendship that you have to feed on a regular basis to keep it topped up. It’s very secure.”
During lockdown, French, 63, finished writing her first novel in five years, Because Of You, a story of love, identity and belonging as two baby girls born on the millennium New Year’s Day change the paths of the women who give birth to them. One is stillborn and, in her desperate grief, the bereaved mother steals the other healthy baby from the hospital. Then unfolds the story of what happens to the two couples – and the child – as they face the consequences. French explains: “I wanted to find a story where it was a challenge to empathise with the main character. She is somebody who is honourable and upright and who we want to love, flaws and all, who does something huge and wrong. I wanted to write about someone you would still love when she makes a giant mistake.”
The novel explores the nature/ nurture debate and whether a child’s personality would naturally follow that of his or her birth parents or adoptive parents. It’s a subject she admits she’s thought about a lot – she has an adopted daughter Billie with exhusband Sir Lenny Henry – but hasn’t come up with an answer. “It’s dollops of both and it depends on the people,” she says.
French spent lockdown at home in Cornwall with her husband, Mark Bignell, who runs a drugs rehabilitation charity, her daughter Billie and her stepdaughter, Lily. She dedicates the book to Billie, Lils, as she calls her, and Olly, her stepson. “Lockdown was frightening. It’s frightening to have an invisible enemy out there but I’m quite resilient and resourceful and to hunker down with my family was a kind of a treat. My two daughters came to live with me for three months and we cooked for each other and talked a lot and gave each other space and had robust debates about things.”
While 18 months of her work schedule went up in smoke and her tour was postponed, she’s missed other things too, she reflects.“I’ve missed cuddles with my mates and it proves to me how much that stuff matters.”
She describes the Government’s handling of the crisis as ‘ shambolic’. “But then a pandemic throws you into a crisis,” she continues. “Nobody’s experienced at this. It’s no secret I’m a ‘ leftie’ and would have preferred Keir Starmer to be guiding us through this.”
The release of Kenneth Branagh’s remake of Death On The Nile, which features French and Saunders, has been put back to December. But they are not in a comedic role, she stresses.
“Ken has been quite brave to cast us in this because if we’re in a big movie, normally we’re parodying it. But he knows that we can not do that. You wouldn’t tip up a giant budget film like that with two people a** ing about.”
Her tour may have been postponed but she’s clearly still busy. “My big work has fallen away and I’ve had to find it elsewhere and pray for things to come back. But I don’t feel any less creative.”
is out now.