Dawn French has recalled an incident that nearly killed her and fellow comic Jennifer Saunders in the 80s.
The pair starred as a comedy duo and writers for the BBC sketch show French and Saunders. In her latest book The Tw*t Files, the 66-year-old revealed they almost died while working on a film in Spain.
“We made a film for The Comic Strip called A Fistful of Travellers’ Cheques in 1984,” she wrote in an excerpt published by The Mirror.
“We were sharing a villa with two bedrooms – Fatty (Dawn’s nickname for Jennifer) and her then-boyfriend in one room and me in the other. About five days in, we were called to set. A car would pick us up at 6 am and it was my job to be the alarm. I duly woke up and, in an effort not to fall back to sleep, I attempted to sit up.”
Dawn said what occurred next felt like something out of a cartoon show.
The duo were poisoned by a carbon monoxide leak leaving them feeling dazed and muddled. But she thanks her early call time as to why they are alive today.
She continued: “What happened next was very odd. It was as if I’d been thwacked in the face with a frying pan in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Eventually, I managed to roll onto the floor. I was groggy and confused. I crawled to the door, opened it, and shouted to Jennifer. She mumbled something and then I heard a thud. None of us could stand up, so we crawled outside.
“It later transpired that we were being poisoned by a carbon monoxide leak from a faulty boiler. I’m pretty sure that, if we hadn’t had that early morning call, we wouldn’t be here now because we wouldn’t have attempted to wake up and the gas would’ve finished us off,” she said.
During a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Dawn spoke of how she hoped her new book would “start up an anti-perfection league.”
She explained: “We carry a lot of shame, humiliation, and guilt about our mistakes, and I thought, ‘These mistakes are where I have learnt the most and where the fun is.’
“So, if you can wrangle back some of that shame and shine a light on it, it dissipates. If you own your mistakes, it’s very empowering.”
Dawn French: The Tw*t Files is on sale now.