French's TV show about female comics

Dawn French is to front a three-part BBC series about female comedians.

She has interviewed three dozen acts for the show, Girls Who Do… Comedy, which covers everyone from Joyce Grenfell and Hattie Jacques to present-day comics.

However French insists: ‘It's not a clips show.’

But she also admitted, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, that the one question she didn’t ask any of her interviewees is why being a female comedian is any different from being a male one.

‘This is the very question that I didn't ask them,’ she said. ‘Because of its entire dullness.’

French, who is about to star in the West End play Smaller opposite Alison Moyet, has previously presented the BBC clips show The Sitcom Story.

Published: 18 Mar 2006