Dawn French: ‘I had to be bullied to read script of BBC’s dark new sitcom’

After starring in one of the most beloved British sitcoms of all time, Dawn French was hesitant about ever accepting another.

Bursting onto our screens in the late 1980s alongside her long-time best friend and comedy partner Jennifer Saunders in their sketch series French and Saunders, a few years later Dawn then went on to star in The Vicar of Dibley.

Written for her by creators Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, the actress played the titular vicar Geraldine Granger across three seasons and several specials – the last time being in 2006.

Now, 20 years on, Dawn is back starring in another sitcom – one that she admittedly initially thought she might hate.

In Can You Keep a Secret?, Dawn plays Debbie Fendon – who is widowed after her hermit-like husband William (Friday Night Dinner’s Mark Heap) unexpectedly dies while they’re watching TV one night.

But months later – when it comes to distributing her late husband’s £250,000 life insurance payout – Debbie is forced to fess up and tell their incredibly anxious son Harry (Craig Roberts, Submarine) the shocking news that his dad is actually alive.

It turns out that a series of unfortunate events led to William being declared deceased, but when realising a life-changing amount of money was on its way, Debbie decided to keep quiet.

To make things even more complicated, the couple’s daughter-in-law Neha (Doctor Who’s Mandip Gill) is a local police officer who could seriously mess things up if she finds out about their illegal actions.

Cue plenty of twists and turns (and non-stop quips) in this delightfully brilliant and hilarious six-part series. But despite its unique premise, Dawn tells Metro she had absolutely no interest in the series to begin with.

The series was written by Simon Mayhew-Archer – the son of The Vicar of Dibley writer Paul, who was the one who initially got Dawn involved after asking her to read a script.

‘When Paul bullied me into reading the script, I was nervous about it really, because I wasn’t really looking for a sitcom,’ she shared.

‘I think they are few and far between – a good sitcom. I thought “oh no, this is another young writer and it’s not going to be great, and I’ll have to make up reasons and be polite [when turning it down]”.

‘But then I read it and really loved it. I knew what he was writing about – his dad – who I know well. I thought it had beautiful heart in it, as well as being really funny as well. I really liked how minimal it is funnily enough. There are outside scenes and all the rest of it, but it’s about what happens in that house, and I love the family and their dynamic, and I could completely see it immediately.’

She continued: ‘I hoped it wasn’t going to be too interfered with from writing to actually producing it. And that has happened. When things go into development, and lots of people have a say, it can become something completely different, but it didn’t here.’

Hilarity ensues when William’s untimely passing is revealed to be a ruse…however, Dawn and Mark said they drew inspiration from similar cases that played out in real life.

‘Immediately when I was first presented with the script I thought it was like The Canoe Man story [In 2002 British man John Dawrin faked his death in a canoeing accident to help his wife collect life insurance money to pay off debts]. People do die and then they aren’t dead. It’s a fact. I read in the newspaper – there was a woman literally in the coffin and went knock, knock, knock,’ Mark declared while laughing and mimicking the action.

‘Just look at Romeo and Juliet and what happened there!’ Dawn added.

Despite their character’s questionable actions, the pair are convinced that viewers will support the couple’s attempts to defraud the life insurance company.

‘I think the whole thing is morally dubious. You might not be interested in morals, I don’t know. But you know you are going to root for them, even if they do something illegal. They haven’t killed anyone,’ Mark teased.

‘But it’s a weakness we’ve all got – if you found a suitcase full of £200k somewhere, we’d all question whether we’d keep it. And if you could justify it because of a nasty insurance company…’ he joked.

Meanwhile, Dawn explained how Debbie ‘certainly feels like she is owed the money’. ‘It’s a fine line between fraud and justice. In that moment, she makes that decision and in that moment everything else is gravy and a consequence of that one decision. Everyone has to come in on it, whether they want to or not. But actually, William is persuaded quite easily.’

‘It’s a toss-up between being outside and being sociable…which he isn’t. Or giving your child a new home. I sort of get it…but it is a crime.’

Can You Keep a Secret? is jam-packed of brilliant one-liners that will likely leave you laughing out loud.

But when asked if there were any scenes or jokes that left them struggling to keep a straight face, Dawn didn’t hesitate to single out a scene in which she had to kiss a ‘corpse’.

When having to identify a body assumed to be her husband’s in the morgue, Debbie goes all out when saying her final goodbye to try and make her grief seem believable. The problem – it’s a complete stranger.

‘I had quite a hard time in the funeral parlour, and I had to kiss a man I’d never met,’ she laughs.

‘He was lying there with his very pale, “dead” face. He was very charming. But you meet someone in the morning and get introduced and told “this is so and so, and you will be kissing later today” and you go “nice to meet you and shake their hands”. And you know that moment is coming…(but he was playing dead). I loved that scene though,’ she exclaimed.

After wrapping up the first season of Can You Keep a Secret? Dawn has been working on her latest novel; however, questions inevitably turn to whether some sort of reunion with her comedy partner Saunders might be on the cards sometime soon.

Since their sketch show wrapped up for good in 2017, the pair – who met as students while studying at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama – have collaborated on podcasts, one-off specials and charity skits.

But when asked what’s next – Dawn explained that it really depends on whether they can be bothered to muster something up.

‘We are always talking about what we might do, but we are quite lazy,’ she admitted.

‘We come up with ideas, and then we forget to talk about it again. But every time we do our podcast is when we are quite fertile with our ideas and then it just depends on what else happens in the meantime.

‘We have a lot of life without each other and then we love seeing each other. So, the reason to do a job together, is just to spend more time together. And we’ve agreed on that. We’ve agreed that we’d like to – but we just don’t know what it is.’

Can You Keep a Secret? starts on Sunday January 7 at 9.30pm on BBC One.

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