Jennifer Saunders saw my grief for what it was – Dawn French

By Eleanor Storey, Press Association

Dawn French has said Jennifer Saunders saw through her efforts to disguise her grief following the death of her father.

The award-winning actresses are best known as the comedy duo French and Saunders, and became household names through their eponymous BBC sketch show, which aired from 1987 to 2005.

Speaking at the Hay Festival on Saturday, French reflected on the death of her father by suicide while she was still in school.

She said: “I went straight to college within weeks of my dad dying and my mum insisted on that.

“My mum was massively strong, incredible woman, and she refused to let me remain at home to look after her… She wanted us to carry on as normal and do the best we could.

“So I went to college, sort of dripping with grief and pretending to be cheerful, and meeting Fatty (Jennifer) Saunders there, you know, who very much, very quickly saw through all this.

“And, whose dad was amazing to me, you know. The minute he met me and knew my story, he sort of stepped up as a bit of a surrogate dad to me, and so that’s a brilliant thing that happened there.”

The Vicar Of Dibley star has been friends with Saunders since the pair met at drama school in the late 1970s.

Along with their sketch show, the duo have also worked together on projects including sitcom Girls On Top, their Still Alive comedy tour, and also launched a podcast together in 2020 titled French And Saunders: Titting About.

French appeared at the Hay Festival on Saturday to speak about her new book, Enough, a fiction novel which explores control over end-of-life decisions.

She said she wanted it to be a “life-affirming book” about the end of life.

Speaking to Reverend Richard Coles on stage, she said: “For a long time I didn’t tell people… what had happened in our family, because of how taboo it is, and all the shame that goes with it.

“And as I’ve grown older and grown into my forgiveness for my dad and my understanding about it, I absolutely refuse to have any of that around it, and I think one of the reasons I’ve written this book is because I want to talk about it.”

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