S18, Ep8 Dawn French on fertility, friendship and being an anti-perfectionist

0:00A boy goes missing from a bus stop in Queensland, Australia. His disappearance made national headlines and launched the largest search for a missing child in Australia's history. There were over 700 persons of interest. It was absolutely enormous. Now, for the first time, his parents share with a global audience their journey to uncover what happened to their son. We'd said right from the start, who's ever responsible had picked on the wrong family. So we just made it our life's work. We're going to hunt you down. And if not for the parents, the case might still be unsolved. But in the end, the pressure led cops to take shocking risks and go to extraordinary lengths to catch this perpetrator.

0:43The master deceiver was deceived and manipulated himself. We did to him what he did to Daniel. From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Where Is Daniel Morecambe? Coming October 1st to The Binge. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

1:13Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Dawn French is an actor, comedian and best-selling writer. She is also, according to her new book and one-woman show, which hilariously detail a litany of moments in which she's embarrassed herself, a huge twat.

1:58French's self-deprecating willingness to turn her mockery inwards is part of what has given her work a warmth and relatability that her fans associate with French herself. And yet her comedy has biked. When she wrote and starred in the long-running BBC sketch show French and Saunders with best friend and collaborator Jennifer Saunders, their work was notable for its feminist edge and risk-taking laughs. French's lead role in the Vicar of Dibley was one of the first mainstream representations of a female member of the clergy. In 2006, French was named as the most admired female celebrity amongst women in Britain in a poll of 4 ,000 people.

2:40Her books, which include both novels and non-fiction, have tackled dysfunctional families, secrets, and nature versus nurture, as well as being very funny. Her desire to create came, perhaps, from her youth. French's father was in the RAF, and French had an itinerant childhood never quite fitting in. It was at the Central School for Speech and Drama that she met Saunders. The two disliked each other on sight, then, luckily for both them and for us, change their minds. They've gone on to work together in many capacities, most recently appearing in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Death on the Nile.

3:21The desire to keep doing different things is what allows us to make mistakes, French says. It's part of your learning. Dawn French, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you, what a lovely introduction. Well this podcast is all about making mistakes and learning and I'm so delighted that you're here sitting in front of me thank you no problem you say in the book the twat files that you want to form an anti-perfection leave yes why is that well I think I just came to the conclusion and it was so simple like most good honest authentic things in life it's actually very simple and I realized that if you can own your mistakes properly and even wear them as badges of honour or display them or present them in some way, you are completely liberated from any of the shame that is attached to mistakes.

4:16We all make them. We all know that we all make them. So why do we pretend that we don't? I'm not sure that we learn much from success. You know, success is great, isn't it? but and we all want it of course we do but really your tinging clear moments of learning happen in your failures and that for me is valuable I mean we all feel humiliation around them we all feel certain amounts of regret or whatever but when you look back at them and I'm an old bird now so I can look back at them I think well I'm glad that happened because then I learned this. Or perhaps I learned not to do it quite in that way again.

5:02Or perhaps I learned a bit about my own skill set, or I learned about my boundaries, or I learned to have a bit of humility, or whatever it was. Every single mistake is a lesson. So why we don't embrace them, I don't know. I mean, you're allowed a moment of cringe and believe me I've had many of those but once you've got past that really there's fun to be had great well we've done the podcast now that's perfect that's exactly what I needed you to say the end is there part of it as well that is in labeling yourself a twat which by the way I love the word twat don't don't I love it it's so good and I was advised at the very beginning, you know, obviously my promoter said, are you sure, Dawn?

5:50Are you sure? And even my agent, I'll never forget when I don't, this is what I'm going to call it. She said, oh Dawn, please don't denigrate yourself, please. And I said, no, no, listen, I'm calling it this. I'm owning the word. I'm not denigrating myself. I'm owning something. It's completely different. The power is entirely different. But I know the promoter said to me, well, I think you've just cut the ticket sales in half because there are people who will find this word offensive for various reasons and I said well I'm this age now I have to be okay with what I think is okay and that is a word my own mother would have been okay to use so I think it's an admonishment but it's an admonishment with a hug in it you know that's what I feel about it and my question was actually going to be you've sort of already answered it but in calling yourself a twat you reclaim the power.

6:41Do you think you're at a stage now, I mean, part of what you do as a comedian, you have to not care what other people think to a certain extent. You do. And that's hard, isn't it? So hard. In this particular cancel culture time that we're living in. But I also, the great thing about being 65 is that you have to not give a toss at some points and you have to know yourself and you have to think, I think I'm at base. I think I'm a well unintended person and I don't intend to hate or spread evil or incite violence or do anything like that but I am allowed to live on the edges of my thoughts I'm allowed to investigate the edges because how else do we form any opinions where's debate gone where's robust debate where we can all get a bit you know get our dandas up and or even maybe dare I say it change our minds about something if we don't talk about stuff and comedy is certainly where all where would Lenny Bruce be where would Richard Pryor be where would you know all those comedians that I loved so much who lived right on the edge if they were so censored I don't think young comedians up and coming comedians are feeling that sense of actually in fact I think what's starting to happen now is the pendulum's going the other way as it always does and they are pushing back a little bit and inhabiting those spiky edges a bit more because as I said in the introduction and you rightly pointed out a lot of your comedy has this edge this grit and the oyster that makes it so funny and when I was lucky enough to be in the London Palladium to see your one-woman show the other night I was so struck by how nice the audience was they were they were like people that you would want to spend time with and they loved you do you feel that love do you feel beloved I do I do and believe me I savour it but I do not rely on it I have learned something very important about audiences which is that you are a tribe and they are people that you you know that have followed you perhaps through a longish career, which it is now.

8:56So they've repeatedly returned. So they grow a love for you, which is for your work, probably. They don't know me personally, although I try to open up in these shows. But you cannot find your real love in an audience because audiences are fickle. And if one day they don't love something you do, what am I supposed to feel then? Betrayed? Unloved? No. You know, I have to know my own love and where it lives and where it is fed and nurtured in my family and in my friends. And then a love with an audience is a different thing. It's a beautiful thing, but it's not something you should ever take for granted.

9:37And it's not something you should ever rely on, actually. The minute I walk out, as I did the other night at the Palladium, there's this lovely, welcoming sound. That is great. But in a funny way, the pressure's on them because I think, okay, you're expecting quite a lot from me. I'd better deliver now. And I fear that if I don't deliver, they might not love me so much. And I don't want to live in that place where my self-worth is dependent on their approval of me. Do you see what I mean? I mean, of course, of course I want their approval. But if I don't get it, I'm not going to be worthless because of it.

10:13Because if I don't get it, it's probably because I'm experimenting with something or I'm failing a bit. And I need to be loved all the way through the failure to the other side. And I can't rely on an audience for that. You can't look for your real love in an audience. But what you can do is really be grateful. And I am for the appreciation of pretty much everything you've ever done, which is what brings them to that place that night. And they make a contract with you. They buy a ticket. They spend their hard earned money and they hope that you will entertain them. And that's my part of the contract.

10:47I will entertain you. Whether we all love each other remains to be seen every night. But don't think for a minute I don't appreciate it because I do. But I regard it as a pressure in a way. Yeah. Have you ever fallen foul of the other side of the line where actually other people, strangers attention has been very meaningful to you? I haven't, I don't think, but I know people who have. And I see people's self-esteem dip and fall dangerously low when things aren't going so well with an audience. And so I feel I don't want to go there. I've got to stay in my bubble of what I think about what I know, whether I think I'm working well or not, or whether I'm still discovering something, whether I finally found the right way to do it.

11:36And you'll find with most performers, you know, even when we finish this tour, I'll still be thinking about how we could have done it better. I won't torture myself with that, but that's part of the learning as well, isn't it? You know, I don't think if you're a creator, you ever create the perfect thing. I don't think it's possible. You know, perfection is not. My own mother used to say it. She used to say we don't do perfect. And I thought, oh, oh, that's right. You're off the hook the minute you believe that. we all try to but we as long as you know in your heart that it's not really possible then it's okay it's okay and perfection isn't human it's not funny and it's not relatable and so everything that you're trying to do is to communicate and connect yeah which is the antithesis of that absolutely that absolutely that so self-worth I know that you've said in the past that you credit your father with an enormous amount of that and I wonder if your knowledge that deep knowledge that your love comes from your family and that's what you rely on did that start with him I quote that moment with him when he was very sweet with me one night when I was going out in some very bad purple suede hot pants to a dinner to a disco to a dinner as if I would go be going to a dinner when I was 30 he sat me down and I thought oh I'm about to get a curfew and instead he just gave me this five minutes of praise about how beautiful I am and how deserving I am of the best attentions and not to settle for anything else.

13:06And it was very clever, really, because I left that room feeling like a majorly prized princess. And actually, no boy was going to be good enough for me that night. So in a way, my dad gave me proper armour to deal with any dickheads really and I've never forgotten it because it was quite surprising not that I didn't know that my dad loved me I did know that I know that my mum loved me I knew that but to have this said to you it was very important so I do attribute quite a lot of it to that moment but of course my mum was also doing that you know and I was a little fat girl I could easily have slipped into the cracks of my own low self-esteem I could easily have done and you're supposed to experiment with some of those feelings I think as you're growing to find out who you are but I didn't because I just always thought that I was worth something and I think that's to do with my upbringing I think that's what it's to do with I'm not entirely sure.

14:05And what is it about military childhoods because you were the daughter of someone who worked for the RAF so was Jennifer Saunders and aid Edmondson his parents were in the military as well. Yeah his dad was a teacher but worked with the army I think yes. Yes and then there's Abby who we employed at Saunders and French which was our company. We saw a lot of people to come and be a PA for us or factotum as she called herself. We chose her immediately because she had an RAF background. So you're drawn to other people. I mean I didn't know that about Jennifer when I first met her but you know the more I loved her the more I realise this is part of why I loved her.

14:43It's because you have this itinerant childhood, because you're constantly moving. You've never lived in the same house for longer than a year. You've never had the same friends for longer than a year. You're constantly putting on a personality fireworks display to make sure that you inveigle yourself into new friendship groups and you're not bullied or rejected. So you learn a bit of sort of social manners and you learn techniques. weeks it's exhausting actually it's exhausting and my mother used to say that I was a sleepwalker and I think that was where perhaps it showed the stress of it showed but as a child I didn't rest easy I don't think but it teaches you to be gregarious and to be ready for new adventures if you like people who have moved around a lot people who understand the weird class system that exists inside the military oh I don't know or there are so many things about how you live where you live in particular kinds of houses and you move from that house to another camp in another part of the country but to a house that looks exactly the same with the same furniture but now new people you know and you can never quite keep a dog and you can never you know it's you're moving and you're abroad and then your dad's away from you for two years and you know it's all very weird and so it's a relief when you meet other people who've had the same experience because you don't have to explain it what do you think French and Saunders and your your long long collaboration both personal professional with Jennifer who I know you call Fatty Saunders yes what do you think it's taught you about friendship oh goodness so much well you know first of all as you said we did not really like each other on first sight we're very different we still are very different I believe we're from different classes if that still is even a conversation I know it's more of a mushy scenario these days when I talk to my kids about class they don't know what I'm talking about they literally don't understand what I mean but I think it's still very it's implied now rather than spoken about openly but the fact that we constantly vote old Deutonians into office Which suggests that there's some dysfunction.

16:56It's more insidious, really, actually, isn't it? Yeah, so when I met Jennifer, I mean, you know, I regarded her as out of my league entirely for lots of reasons. She was seemingly confident, seemingly. She was very beautiful. She was an officer's daughter. Now, when you are in the military, these ranks mean everything. The officers live at the other end of the camp. they have detached houses, they have houses with bathrooms with sinks in. You know, there are huge things that make you very different from them. And so I'm part of the oik end of the camp. And really, I didn't mix with the officers kids.

17:36And suddenly, she's an officers kid. So I was thinking, you're not the type I mix with, slightly plummy voice. But I was so wrong. You know, this is why you should never judge the book. Never do that. And I have a prejudice against posh people. I realise I've always had it and I still think I have it a little bit. A posh person has to kind of earn my respect before I can freely give it in a way I would to somebody else, which is mad, really. And I should have learnt these lessons by now. But as soon as we were friends and we shared a flat together, then I thought, oh, that's ludicrous. But she did different things to me.

18:16She was invited to things called drinks parties. She would get invitations, proper embossed invitations, and they'd be on the mantelpiece and they'd say, you know, Jennifer is invited by Fifi, you know, somebody double-barreled, two drinks in Chelsea between six and eight on Wednesday. And I thought, what is that? Who is Fiddley, Biddley, Biddley? Who is she? Why only drinks? Well, you're not going to have your tea. You're not going to have anything to eat. Why are you going for drinks? What drink? What's standing about and drinking? This is not something I'd ever heard of. And I went to a couple of these things with her and they were pretty horrendous.

18:57But these were young people mimicking their parents' behaviour of having their friends around for drinks. You know, this was not something I'd ever heard of. So she showed me all kinds of things like that. And I know that I was just, I was very chippy. And I think I was a bit blunt. I also, my dad had just died and I was dripping with grief and trying to cover that up. So I think I was not quite entirely authentic, really. But she understood that with time. So, yeah, we were very, very different. And it was only when we kind of fell in love with each other, when we lived together, that all of those prejudices melted away.

19:41I love that language falling in platonic love it's so important absolutely I don't want to gloss over the fact that your father died by suicide and we'll come back to that I'm so sorry you went through that at that age thank you a lot of what you say about Jennifer I can apply to my own best friend we didn't like each other I didn't really like her at first sight thought she seemed really confident I was like she's not going to be the likes of me and I think it's the most sustaining most consistent love of my life and I think the thing that Emma has taught me is that there's great safety in our attachment so we can have periods where we've had like one rupture that was then repaired and made us closer yes okay have you experienced that with jenna yes but you've got to remember jennifer is my very very very close friend but i also have a bestie okay that's aside from jennifer and in fact i have other friends as well so i have a little group a little caucus of really beloved, valuable female friends.

20:39And probably in that I'd put a gay friend too, a gay man who is sort of honorary woman in that gang of people that, as you say, I feel entirely safe with, who know me inside out and who support me inside out and for whom I would support them in exactly the same way. But Jennifer is right up there. and yes I think I've never had a rupture your word with Jennifer I have with my bestie which we similarly recovered from and learnt from and it was incredibly painful because you can't believe that you would have such a tearing with somebody you love so much but of course that's when it's going to hurt because you love them so much but Jennifer and I have a different kind of system And I think it's because we work together as well as play together, which is that we take a sort of constant temperature of each other.

21:35So we never have got to a difficult row. We've never had a row. We might have had a bit of sulking. And even that, I can hardly remember any of that. We seem to have a kind of innate compromise kind of gauge. and I think this comes from working together so because we're writing together we understand what the other person is contributing and who came up with the idea and who's writing it down and who's had the most to do with it but we will get to a moment when I can think of one sketch we did particularly where I had quite strong feelings about the way it should go and she had strong feelings the other way and it was as if I thought you know I took the temperature at that moment I thought, actually, she wrote this.

22:19It was her idea. This is the time to surrender. You know, given this is her baby, I need to follow here. And she does the same for me. And I don't even know how we navigate it, but we do. And that is a testament to strong, empowering, female, understanding friendships. Yes. I also love something you've said in the past about how you might've felt jealous about the ABFAB success that Jennifer had. to say no but because you loved her so much the pride overwhelmed the jealousy you could feel both things and actually the positive I've never heard someone put that into words before and it's so true well you have a cocktail of emotions that's what you have and I'm imagining it's very akin to what being a sister is like I don't have a sister I've got a sister-in-law who I love very much but I don't have a sister and I'm imagining this must be what sisters have to navigate all the time.

23:16You know, who's the favourite? Who's the most successful? Who's managed this? Does the other one feel failed because this one has succeeded? I imagine it's a bit like that, like a sisterhood. And so, yeah, again, what I'm all for is owning the rather ugly little moments of jealousy or failure or anything you're feeling that's a bit difficult and explain it to the other person because we're all human. And if that other person has it explained to them, they can help you through it it's so much easier that way so much easier and then he had the vicar of dibley anyway so yeah who's laughing now let's get on to your first failure because i'm just aware that i could talk to you for hours and never get on to the point of this interview but your first failure is that you failed to succeed in any of the dream jobs that you imagined you would have as a kid yeah so talk us through some of those well i mean i'm sure we've all had these kind of jobs but i I genuinely believed as a child that I would be any of these things, that I was definitely going to be at least one of them.

24:17One of them was a ballerina because I did ballet classes, which I absolutely loved. It was not, I did not take it lightly. This was serious for me. Age four onwards, but sort of four till age 10. I had a leotard on and went to ballet class with my little tutu in a bag and I listened to everything I was taught. I read books about ballet. I absolutely loved it. But of course, I did not have the body for ballet. I'm a little round person. But that wasn't the point of ballet classes. Everybody should do ballet classes, men and women alike, because it's so fantastic. It's great for your bones. It's great for your grace.

24:57It's great for discipline. It's great for your body. It's great for rhythm. It's great for every possible reason. And then it was a crashing disappointment to realise that I just didn't actually fit into the category of the prima ballerinas. This was shocking to me, absolutely shocking. And there's something to do with that confidence again from my parents. I never thought for a moment that there was something I couldn't achieve if I didn't really work hard enough at it. and to realise that your limitations are your physicality, it's really a terrible thing. So there was that. And then there was, like everybody, I've wanted to be, well, I say like everybody, maybe not.

25:39I wanted to be a pop star. You know, I've had the hairbrush in front of the mirror, but I've prepared the speeches for the awards that I was definitely going to get. And again, I had to come to the realisation, which I do talk about a little bit in the show that you saw, that perhaps I can't sing that well. It's perhaps a truth that I have to come to terms with. Whereas in the shower, in my car, in my head, in my dreams, I'm a soaringly magnificent singer of many kinds, classical, opera, pop, everything. And I would emulate people that I loved, Ella Fitzgerald, Debbie Harry, whoever it was. And I genuinely believed that I had the ability.

26:25and again had another crashing disappointment when you think oh people seem to be telling me that this is a door that is closed because in the show and in the book you it's incredibly funny you recount this audition for mamma mia which was in many ways your dream role yes and then you had to sing these songs and you thought you were going to nail it and then actually didn't so that crashing realization did that come quite late in life well i think it started to happen early i think people were giving me the clues that i perhaps this wasn't the way forward for me but i was ignoring them like a lot of people who can't sing you don't know you can't sing or if you can sing a bit you you know you just relish the idea you fantasize about it because it's such a big dream so that was another awful crash and then another dream I had was to be an air hostess and I think it was because my dad was posted abroad and we went on planes quite a lot when I was young and air hostesses used to be and still are to an extent but used to be even especially when you're little, incredibly glamorous, with the beautiful little hats and beautiful little outfits and the walking up and down.

27:31I didn't for a second think they were waitresses or they were working hard. I just thought they were massively glamorous and traveling, going to the actual countries that the plane was going to. And when I was very young, I used, my dad was very short and we're all short to my family. So my mother was forever cutting off the bottom of the trousers that he had and having to hen them. And I would be given the bottom, the fully intact bottom of the trousers, which I would place on my head as an air hostess's hat. And I had badges that went on the side. And so I had many trouser bottoms that doubled up as an air hostess's hat.

28:10And I used to push trolleys around my house, encouraging. I wasn't actually interested in serving people. I was mainly interested in getting to fantasy destinations where I would just sit by a pool and be glamorous and put mascara on. But there's so much here about the power of imagination and creativity. Yes. And hope. Hope. And so how do you learn how to balance? Well, you know, here's the fourth one that I need to tell you about was that I genuinely believed I would be a show jumper because I loved horses, really. Well, with such giant love. And my father bought, I talk about this in the book, but my father knew that I loved horses.

28:48We knew nothing about horses. Our family knew nothing about them. But my father was offered a horse in return for a debt that somebody owed him at a garage. And literally one day my father brought a horse home and the horse came with a little foal that she'd had. And I was so delighted that I had a horse. But this was an utterly unsuitable horse. It was an old horse that hadn't been ridden for years. The saddle came with the horse, but there was no girth and nothing fitted this horse. This horse didn't really want me on the back of her at all. The foal had no interest in me except to bite my tits, which it did regularly.

29:28So my father made a girth out of an old tyre that went round the horse. and this is what I would ride and I would have such joy until I went to a gymkhana one day and saw the girls who understand about horses this is Jennifer's world so Jennifer's raised with family understood horses rather good quality horses horses that are suitable for you good tuck the correct outfit pony club all the right rules this is not what I was I was in Wellington boots bad jacket I didn't know that you had to wear um jobpers I didn't know any of the rules at all and so I took part in a gymkhana where the saddle started to move around the horse as I was taking part and so there was a very strange moment when I was riding a horse entirely upside down with my head banging on the floor and the horse's legs clunking into my head can you imagine this was my dream of being a show jumper heartbreakingly funny it is funny But these are the moments in my life where the part of the process is the reality is this dawn.

30:36I am not an elegant horse rider on an elegant horse. I am not going to win badminton. This is not what it is for me. However, there is joy in everything I have had. So in a funny way, what I would say about it creatively is that, yes, all these dreams were magnificent dreams for me. chances for my imagination to grow but also crushing moments of reality when you realize and you need those moments to find out where your limitations are and actually what you can go on to achieve and what perhaps you could prove people wrong with but what I would say to you is that I then went on into a job didn't I where I have been all of these things I have been all of them I have danced with Mamma Mia.

31:22I've been in Mamma Mia. I have danced with Darcy Bustle and Adam Cooper. I've been raised aloft by Adam Cooper. I have been on horseback in beautiful sketches where I'm in charge and I've got the right job. And I've been a pop star. I've been Bjork and thousands of people. So I've just been in the dressing up box and been able to recreate all of these things for myself for fun. So, you know, it's OK. Beautiful.

31:54A boy goes missing from a bus stop in Queensland, Australia. His disappearance made national headlines and launched the largest search for a missing child in Australia's history. There were over 700 persons of interest. It was absolutely enormous. Now, for the first time, his parents share with a global audience their journey to uncover what happened to their son. We'd said right from the start, who's ever responsible had picked on the wrong family. So we just made it our life's work. We're going to hunt you down. And if not for the parents, the case might still be unsolved. But in the end, the pressure led cops to take shocking risks and go to extraordinary lengths to catch this perpetrator.

32:38The master deceiver was deceived and manipulated himself. We did to him what he did to Daniel. From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Where Is Daniel Morecambe? Coming October 1st to The Binge. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

32:59I want to talk about your dad. Yeah. In this context, because the way that you talk about him is someone who supported you in the pursuit of these dreams. Yes. and he struggled very much with mental health although you didn't know that at the time I think I'm right in saying and he died by suicide when you were 18 yes which in a way is the most awful and the dream of having a present father absolutely and I just wanted to ask how you are really because I'm okay because I'm 65 now and although I would definitely say I still carry the sadness of it I now understand it in a way I didn't at 18 at 18 I was just furious and just so full of grief that it was virtually impossible to survive it that it was so devastating.