Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders have revealed the one sketch they ‘shouldn’t have done’ on their comedy show.
The pair left millions in hysterics with their BBC sketch series, satirising a wide range of topics from films to plastic surgery.
But speaking in a documentary for BBC’s imagine… series, the duo admitted that they both regret a 1988 sketch which saw them dress up as an ailing Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.
The duo added they’re ‘very glad’ they performed much of their comedy work in the 1980 and 90s, because they’d be ‘cancelled now’.
Jennifer told Alan Yentob: ‘I think as far as the humour goes, we are still the same, we still see things on telly and wish we were 30 years younger.’
Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders have revealed the one sketch they ‘shouldn’t have done’ on their comedy show
Speaking in a documentary for BBC’s Imagine… series, the duo admitted that they both regret a 1988 sketch which saw them dress up as an ailing Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers
In the sketch, Dawn dresses up as an ageing Ginger, and is wheeled onto the stage in a chair for an ‘event’ honouring Hollywood legend Fred Astaire
Dawn added: ‘It’d be hard to know in this day and age how you could satirise something for the very simple reason you’d be cancelled now if it was all edgy.
‘You know, everybody’s fearful now. I’m very glad that we’ve done our comedy in the time that we did it.
‘Not that we were particularly edgy but we weren’t afraid of anything.
‘You know, any philosophy, I would have had a go at, any person I’d have had a go at easily, because, partly because it’s not with hatred, partly cos there’s no venom, I hope, in it.
‘But there is a poking, you know, that’s the whole point. That’s what comedians are here for.’
Jennifer added that there are ‘a lot more filters to get through,’ and she’s ‘sure’ they’ve offended viewers at some point.
‘I’ve looked back and thought ”mmmm”,’ she added, before noting the 1988 sketch from their French and Saunders show.
In the sketch, Dawn dresses up as an ageing Ginger, and is wheeled onto the stage in a chair for an ‘event’ honouring Hollywood legend Fred Astaire.
Jennifer takes to the podium as an elderly Katherine Hepburn, with the Mamma Mia star explaining she performed the bit as if ‘she had Parkinson’s’
Hollywood icon Katherine (left) and Ginger (right) were the subject of French and Saunders’ satire in the sketch
Jennifer takes to the podium as an elderly Katherine, with the Mamma Mia star explaining she performed the bit as if ‘she had Parkinson’s.’
She added: ‘We did a sketch where she had Parkinson’s and I think we shouldn’t have done that.’
In the documentary, Dawn also revealed she quit her sketch show with comedy partner Jennifer after one skit left her ‘humiliated’.
The actress recalled how the 2008 scene with singer Anastacia saw her become the butt of the joke before she ‘wept all the way home’ and called time on the series after a decade.
Dawn explained how the show’s costume designer ‘fell on her back laughing’ when the Vicar Of Dibley star dressed as the American singer.
She said: ‘I looked in the mirror and I thought, “Yes, this isn’t it, this isn’t what Anastacia looks like” But instead of finding it funny, I just thought “Oh I don’t like it”.
‘It just felt like I wasn’t in control of the comedy. The joke was on me. I hadn’t controlled it in any way.’
Jennifer, hearing the story for the first time said: ‘[I] didn’t realise it was so dramatic that you decided to end the whole act.’
Dawn added: ‘I hated everything about the day and I said I’m never going to do that again. I’m never going to feel humiliated like that again.
‘I could’ve just been hormonal, but I just hated it, and I hadn’t ever hated it.’
In the documentary, Dawn also revealed she quit her sketch show with comedy partner Jennifer after one skit with singer Anastacia left her ‘humiliated’
Jennifer then went on to say how their show had ‘ended on TV long before’ the infamous sketch with TV bosses ‘cancelling everything’.
Dawn branded Sketch shows a ‘young person’s game’ while her pal said: ‘We sort of thought well, nobody really wants us anymore and the truth is you need a break.’
French and Saunders, which was written by and starred the pair, first aired in 1987 and famously saw them parodying famous films including Titanic and The Exorcist.
In the programme, Dawn broke down in tears as she opened up about the death of her father when she was just 19 years old.
Denys French suffered from depression for many years and tragically took his own life in September 1977, aged 45.
The actress revealed she had been unaware of her dad’s illness as he had kept it secret from her and her brother Gary, telling them he suffered from headaches and had to have lie-downs occasionally.
She said: ‘I grew up with a man who was completely jolly and cheerful most of the time and then would have what were referred to as “migraines” in out house, where dad was asleep and the curtains were drawn and you just had to be quiet.
‘But I didn’t know that because then he could come out of that and be perfectly jolly again.’
Speaking about his death, Dawn said it was ‘shocking and dreadful’ and left her reeling and ‘angry’.
She recalled: ‘A grenade went off inside our family, it was shocking and dreadful, it was the worst thing you could imagine.
‘And I was furious and angry and just dripping with grief about all of it and shock at that age.’
However, Dawn said that as she grew older she learned from her mother the anguish Denys had been suffering and has come to ‘forgive’.
Visibly becoming tearful, she said: ‘As I grew up, I started to understand the awful, hellish place he was obviously in, the fight he’d put up for so long and you forgive.’
Dawn said that Denys had been a huge source of confidence for her and that he was always building up her self-esteem.
She said: ‘If you are a little fat girl you could trip into a great big crack of self esteem. I think he knew instinctively that I needed armour.
‘I remember him stopping me when I was going out the door and he told me I was beautiful and I should value myself. So I have always thought I was worth something.’
It comes after Dawn revealed she was plotting a return to the small screen.
Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, Dawn told how she hopes the show will air in either late 2024 or early 2025, and vowed she’ll ‘fight for people to be as offensive as they want to be.’
She said: ‘There are plans afoot. I can’t tell you too much about it at the moment. But at the end of next year or beginning of the following year there will be a sitcom and I will be in it.’
Dawn spoke about the state of comedy today and recalled how much difficulty her and Jennifer had in getting Absolutely Fabulous on screens.
In the programme, Dawn broke down in tears as she opened up about the death of her father when she was just 19 years old
Denys French suffered from depression for many years and tragically took his own life in September 1977, aged 45 (pictured with Dawn)
She said: ‘I remember Jennifer [Saunders] telling me how difficult it was to get Absolutely Fabulous off the ground, because her characters were smoking, drinking, and falling over and being complete eejits.
‘But you know, it all seems so mild now… Let’s be inappropriate, let’s wear purple, let’s just push the edges a little bit and laugh at ourselves when we get it a bit wrong.’
Asked whether comedy has become a ‘bit too vanilla’ these days, Dawn replied: ‘No, because there’s everything. There’s everything for everyone. I would fight tooth and nail for people to be as offensive as they want to be.
‘Hatred? No. I think we do know when something sneaks into completely unacceptable incitement to hatred. I think we all know when that’s the case.
‘And of course, it’s just not funny. That’s the facts. It is just not funny to anyone except for the one person who thinks it is, who usually has lost their marbles.’