Dawn French has a special love for Australia, its people and our baked delights, so she jumped at the chance to work on a brilliant new ABC animated series from Academy Award-winning Aussie Shaun Tan.
“I do think you are quite a talented bunch,” she tells Woman’s Day.
“There’s a lot of free thinkers in Australia. There’s something free and fresh and new about the whole culture in Australia. I like it.”
The much-loved star of The Vicar Of Dibley and French And Saunders has an enduring love affair with Australia, which has often taken her and comedy partner Jennifer Saunders Down Under.
TOURING DOWN UNDER
“Jennifer and I have always toured over there. Whenever we’ve done any job here, we immediately take it to Australia and then on to New Zealand because it’s kind of fresh pastures, new audiences and a nice fresh attitude,” she says.
“I was a judge on Australia’s Got Talent and when I was first offered that job – don’t take this personally Australians – but I wondered if that was the question, ‘Australia’s got talent?’ but I thought I’ll go and find out.”
When Dawn spent months in Sydney filming AGT in 2013, she fell in love with the “spunky” people and two of our national food obsessions, which she admits inspired her to sign on to new ABC series, Tales From Outer Suburbia.
“The main reason I’ve taken this job on and jumped at the chance to work with you Aussies is because you are my physical bridge to one of my greatest passions, which is something called ‘lamingtons’,” she reveals.
“It’s a chocolate-covered coconut bit of delight. That and Tim Tams. Yes, I have taken the Tim Tam (Slam) challenge and yes, I’m brilliant at it. So that’s a major reason. In fact, don’t tell anyone but I would have been happy to be paid in Tim Tams!
“And you’re a bunch of spunks, see!”
Dawn, 68, voices the character of Grandma in the animated adaptation of Perth-born author and artist Shaun Tan’s 2008 book, Tales From Outer Suburbia, an anthology of 15 short stories inspired by his childhood memories.
“Grandma is amazing,” she says. “She’s courageous and adventurous and unafraid of new horizons. She wants to try lots of new experiences. She’s brave, she’s quite chaotic, she’s a bit bonkers. She’s got great taste in clothes, slightly sort of retro. She’s quite colourful. Grandma is the bomb!”
Shaun says his beloved book has been completely re-imagined for the small screen with the help of a very talented team of animators and writers at Flying Bark Productions, and credits Dawn with helping bring it to life.
“Dawn’s performance really breathed life into these essentially lifeless objects (the animated characters resemble puppets),” explains Shaun, who won an Academy Award in 2011 for his short, animated film, The Lost Thing.
“It doesn’t really feel like Dawn’s reading lines, it’s almost like she’s improvising all the time, even though it’s a scripted passage. I think she did improvise a few bits, which was great and added to the character.”
Shaun says there are new characters in the TV series who weren’t in the book, but that fans will still recognise some, including every kid’s favourite tiny house guest, Eric, who looks like a burned leaf.
Dawn happily admits that Tales From Outer Suburbia is “quite possibly the strangest thing” she’s ever read and says she hopes parents will watch it with their kids and discuss some of the ideas it raises.
A REUNION?
Meanwhile there are rumours of a reunion with her beloved comedy partner, Jennifer, after Dawn admitted she’d be “very keen” to star with her long-time friend again.
The pair met at drama school in the 1970s and have been best friends ever since.
They last appeared together on Boxing Day 2024, when they appeared as judges on the UK’s Masked Singer.
“Jennifer and I talk every year about what we could do,” she said in an interview with Good Housekeeping, speculating on what kind of production it might be.
“A sitcom? A comedy? Can we be bothered to write it? Should it be a documentary?”
She also joked, “We’d need five wigs and eight sets of teeth, as everything Jennifer and I have done has a big production value, even though it’s just two fat old birds yapping at the end of the day.”
