Dawn French reveals plans for anti-woke sitcom following the success of French And Saunders and The Vicar of Dibley and says ‘I will fight for people to be as offensive as they want to be’

Dawn French has revealed she has plans for a new ‘anti-woke’ sitcom.

The actress, 66, is best known for starring in beloved shows French And Saunders and The Vicar of Dibley and is now plotting a return to the small screen.

Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, Dawn told how she hopes the show will air in either late 2024 or early 2025, and vowed she’ll ‘fight for people to be as offensive as they want to be.’

She said: ‘There are plans afoot. I can’t tell you too much about it at the moment. But at the end of next year or beginning of the following year there will be a sitcom and I will be in it.’

Dawn spoke about the state of comedy today and recalled how much difficulty her close pal Jennifer Saunders had in getting Absolutely Fabulous on screens. 

Dawn French has revealed she has plans for a brand new sitcom

The actress is known for starring as Geraldine Grainger on beloved sitcom The Vicar of Dibley

She said: ‘I remember Jennifer [Saunders] telling me how difficult it was to get Absolutely Fabulous off the ground, because her characters were smoking, drinking, and falling over and being complete eejits. 

‘But you know, it all seems so mild now… Let’s be inappropriate, let’s wear purple, let’s just push the edges a little bit and laugh at ourselves when we get it a bit wrong.’

Asked whether comedy has become a ‘bit too vanilla’ these days, Dawn replied: ‘No, because there’s everything. There’s everything for everyone. I would fight tooth and nail for people to be as offensive as they want to be. 

‘Hatred? No. I think we do know when something sneaks into completely unacceptable incitement to hatred. I think we all know when that’s the case. 

‘And of course, it’s just not funny. That’s the facts. It is just not funny to anyone except for the one person who thinks it is, who usually has lost their marbles.’

Dawn would be far from the first comedy star to push boundaries with their content, with Ricky Gervais recently coming under fire for ‘ableist slurs’ scenes in his new stand-up show Armageddon.

In his new Netflix show, set to be released on Christmas Day, Gervais said that he had been making videos for terminally ill children at hospitals with the Make-A-Wish charity.

In a snippet Ricky released on Twitter, he joked that the children were ‘f***ing r*******’ for not ‘wishing to get better’.

She found widespread fame in sketch show French And Saunders with her close pal Jennifer Saunders

She said: ‘There are plans afoot. I can’t tell you too much about it at the moment. But at the end of next year or beginning of the following year there will be a sitcom and I will be in it’ 

Dawn would be far from the first comedy star to push boundaries, with Ricky Gervais recently coming under fire for ‘ableist slurs’ scenes in his new stand-up show

The comedian has since faced fierce backlash with a mother of a terminally ill child setting up a petition to get the skit removed by Netflix. And a UK disability charity has slammed the sketch for having ‘ableist slurs’ in it.

Last year, Jimmy Carr also faced backlash for making a joke about the Holocaust in his stand-up show.

In a widely-shared clip from his Netflix show His Dark Material, Mr Carr joked about the horror of the Holocaust and ‘six million Jewish lives being lost’.

As a punchline, the 49-year-old then made a disparaging remark about the deaths of thousands of gypsies at the hands of the Nazis.

‘But they never mention the thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives,’ Carr quipped to a laughing audience.

The audience had reacted with hoots of laughter to the clip of Mr Carr from ‘His Dark Material’ which was widely shared online.

Jimmy then explained why he thought it was a ‘good joke’, saying that it was ‘f**king funny’, ‘edgy as all hell’ and because it had an ‘educational quality’.

But the joke caused widespread backlash elsewhere and prompted a debate about racism and free speech, with Carr later leaving the joke out of a stand-up performance in Cambridge.

Rosie Jones also faced backlash for using an ‘ableist’ slur in the title of her documentary Am I A R****d? 

At the beginning of the documentary, Rosie addressed the controversy surrounding the title and why she wanted it to be kept in.

The comedian said: ‘This programme has a very shocking word in it. The ‘R’ word.

‘I understand that it will be upsetting to many but I believe we need to confront this word and other ableist terms head-on for people to realise how damaging it is.

‘So I said to Channel 4, “let’s use that word in the title and then hopefully, by the end of this film, people will think twice before ever using that word again.’

In 2020, Monty Python star John Cleese sparked backlash for defending J.K. Rowling when a Twitter user demanded that he share his honest opinion on the Harry Potter author.

‘I’m afraid I’m not that interested in trans folks I just hope they’re happy and that people treat them kindly,’ he tweeted.

He then snarkily tweeted: ‘Deep down, I want to be a Cambodian police woman. Is that allowed, or am I being unrealistic?’

He was slammed for his comments by a number of progressive figures, including Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness, who accused the comedian of ‘transphobia’.

Dawn is currently recovering from a partial recent knee replacement after she was injured recreating a Vicar Of Dibley stunt on The Paul O’Grady show in 2009.

Up until now, the star had been using steroids to deal with the pain.

She said: ‘It was on a recreation [of the Vicar of Dibley] on The Paul O’Grady Show so many, many years later, and I agreed to this idiocy because I’m British and because I’m not a girl, which is what my brother used to call me if I refused a challenge. 

‘So, I agreed to do this jump and my left leg buckled underneath me and has given me trouble ever since. And I have very severe arthritis in that leg. 

‘And recently, unfortunately, 10 shows before the end of my tour, my leg just gave up and I couldn’t walk anymore. And although I could have done the show sitting down, I felt that was cheating the audience. 

‘So, we’ve moved those 10 shows to next year and I whizzed off and I had the operation that I’ve been longing to have and have been slightly putting off with fear.

Dawn is currently recovering from a partial recent knee replacement after she was injured recreating a Vicar Of Dibley stunt on The Paul O’Grady show in 2009

‘So, I’ve had a replacement knee three weeks ago and I’m hobbling about with my crutches and I’m trying to do physio… and I have to keep the faith that it is going to get better. And it’s a partial knee replacement. 

‘I was slightly insulted when I was told that I also have a fracture on the back of the knee, which is called an insufficiency fracture. So, my knees are insufficient.’ 

Elsewhere during the interview, Dawn detailed her low-key Christmas plans.

The actress is married to Mark Bignell while she shares daughter Billie, 32, with her ex-husband Lenny Henry.

She said: ‘The Muppet Christmas movie, I love that, and I love the old-fashioned films It’s A Wonderful Life, but you have to find the time when you’re on your own with the fire, and no other people to do that. And Christmas at our house is full of lots of people. 

‘I’ll be hobbling about this year, so we’re going to a pub for lunch instead of cooking at our house. This is the first time we’ve done that, and I’m very excited about it. 

‘But there will be lots of people about, so it’s hard to find that moment, isn’t it where, you know, you’re alone, you’ve got your Baileys and you’re enjoying an old fashioned black and white movie.’

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