[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$faDRoyAlXtUB3nZoU8_deARMbPUUvjy69spjVvrn7ecg":3,"$fVfT6f5updnfi7d73Cx7opo_Be_baS-JTobziZGMDDmo":51},{"author":4,"tags":50},{"author_id":5,"author_name":6,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"bio":9,"short_bio":10,"bio_jsonld":11,"slug":48,"image_url":49},29976,"Dawn French","D",102,"Dawn French is a British comedian, actor, and writer born on 11 October 1957 in Holyhead, who has worked across television, film, and the stage.\n\nFrench was educated at Caistor Grammar School and Plymouth College before training at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. These formative years preceded a career that would span several decades of British television comedy. Her work as a comedian, actor, and novelist has been conducted in English, and she holds citizenship of the United Kingdom.\n\nFrench wrote and starred in the BBC sketch comedy series French and Saunders alongside her comedy partner Jennifer Saunders, a collaboration that ran from 1987 to 2007. The series established her as a prominent presence in British television comedy. She also starred in the BBC comedy series Murder Most Horrid, which ran from 1991 to 1999, a programme in which she took on a variety of darkly comic roles. From 1994 to 2007, French starred in the BBC comedy series The Vicar of Dibley, a role that kept her at the centre of British television for well over a decade. Across these projects, she accumulated seven British Academy Television Award nominations, reflecting the sustained attention her performances received from the industry. In 2009, French and Saunders were jointly awarded the BAFTA Fellowship, one of the most formal recognitions the British Academy of Film and Television Arts confers.\n\nBeyond her television work, French has pursued careers as a stage actor and novelist, extending her practice across multiple creative forms. Her output as a writer places her among those performers who have moved between performance and authorship, contributing to both fields within the same career. The recurring thread across her professional life is sketch comedy and situation comedy produced for British television, genres in which she worked consistently from the late 1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first century. The BAFTA Fellowship awarded jointly to French and Saunders in 2009 stands as a concrete marker of the partnership that defined a significant portion of her career.","Dawn French is a British comedian, actor, and writer born on 11 October 1957 in Holyhead, who has worked across television, film, and the stage.",{"@graph":12,"@context":47},[13,24],{"@id":14,"name":6,"@type":15,"sameAs":16,"birthDate":22,"description":23},"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q236309","Person",[14,17,18,19,20,21],"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_French","https://viaf.org/viaf/81428817/","https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n91123764","https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL742709A","https://d-nb.info/gnd/137205139","1957-10-11","British actress, comedian and writer (born 1957)",{"@type":25,"author":26,"headline":29,"isBasedOn":30,"mainEntity":31,"reviewedBy":32,"articleBody":9,"dateCreated":33,"dateModified":34,"additionalProperty":35,"creativeWorkStatus":46},"Article",{"name":27,"@type":28},"Editorial Team","Organization","Dawn French — biography",[14,17,19,20],{"@id":14},{"name":27,"@type":28},"2026-05-24T07:16:16.196791+00:00","2026-05-24T07:35:18.773385+00:00",[36,40,43],{"@type":37,"value":38,"propertyID":39},"PropertyValue","Q236309","wikidata",{"@type":37,"value":41,"propertyID":42},"0.964","factscore",{"@type":37,"value":44,"propertyID":45},"claude-sonnet-4-6","draftModel","AI-drafted, auto-published","https://schema.org","dawn-french",null,[],{"quotes":52,"pagination":116},[53,61,67,74,80,86,92,98,104,110],{"id":54,"quote_text":55,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":58,"source":59,"quote_tag":60,"commentary":49},3632162,"Theatre outings are my favourite thing to spend money on. The most influential play I saw was 'Bent,' which starred Ian McKellen. And I loved the original performance of 'The Rocky Horror Show,' with Richard O'Brien and Tim Curry at the Royal Court, when I was about 15.",7,false,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":62,"quote_text":63,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":64,"source":65,"quote_tag":66,"commentary":49},3631949,"I'm constantly astounded by how amazing women are. And as we go through all these different stages of life as long as you share them with others and say, 'Well, this is bloody weird', you can get through everything.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":68,"quote_text":69,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":71,"source":72,"quote_tag":73,"commentary":49},2972594,"I’ve never disliked myself, and my weight has had nothing to do with my self-esteem.",6,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":75,"quote_text":76,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":77,"source":78,"quote_tag":79,"commentary":49},2972593,"I think of myself now as a writer, although I wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘novelist’ because that sounds like a Victorian person.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":81,"quote_text":82,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":83,"source":84,"quote_tag":85,"commentary":49},2972592,"Other than my memory being a bit woolly and my knees being a bit creaky, I don’t really think there’s anything I can’t do.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":87,"quote_text":88,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":89,"source":90,"quote_tag":91,"commentary":49},2972591,"I haven’t really ever had to audition for anything.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":93,"quote_text":94,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":95,"source":96,"quote_tag":97,"commentary":49},2972590,"That’s the weird thing about not being married – you can’t get regular kissing; you can’t be guaranteed of it, and that’s a great shame.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":99,"quote_text":100,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":101,"source":102,"quote_tag":103,"commentary":49},2972589,"For me, whatever age or size I’ve been, I have rather liked myself. The shell is not the thing at all.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":105,"quote_text":106,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":107,"source":108,"quote_tag":109,"commentary":49},2972588,"I don’t read novels whilst I’m writing one; I just haven’t got a wide enough brain to concentrate on incoming and outgoing in the same time zone.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":111,"quote_text":112,"author_id":5,"source_id":70,"has_image":57,"author":113,"source":114,"quote_tag":115,"commentary":49},2972587,"I watch schlock telly. Like the ‘Kardashians.’ I love it. It’s my guilty pleasure.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"currentPage":117,"totalPages":118,"totalItems":8,"itemsPerPage":119},1,11,10]