Before being ushered into a Dublin hotel suite to interview French and Saunders, I am informed, in solemn tones, that if I have the temerity to mention (a) an alleged affair by Dawn French's husband, Lenny Henry, or (b) a recent tabloid story about an "outsize" bath being installed in French's house, the interview will be "terminated immediately".
That scuttles the first question: Dawn, is it true Lenny Henry was banging some model in your outsize bath? No, not really, but it's the morning after they've appeared on The Late Late Show, and French is still giving out yards about Pat Kenny. (During a fashion show in The Point two years ago, Kenny had quipped: "I'm sure some people would pay £10,000 so that Dawn French wouldn't get out of bed for work".) "He tried to make a big joke about that remark on the show last night, but I don't think he thought that he had done anything wrong by saying something like that. He was very rude to me [at the fashion show] and he still hasn't apologised."
The conversation drifts into other stories about people making remarks about other people and how they are reported, sometimes accurately, sometimes falsely, and how much harm these remarks can cause. "Oh God, Dawn's had that experience," says Jennifer Saunders. Never? "It was on the front cover of the Sun, the headline was `Rub a dub dub, Dawn can't sit in her tub'," Saunders recalls.
"It was a stupid story about me supposedly not being able to fit into my bath," says French. "It was just another `fat' story which was entirely invented. I spoke to my lawyer about it because it wasn't a great story about me. It was insulting and it could have f----d up a few things for me work-wise. The bath is 12 years old, it wasn't specially made for me and the reason why it's longer than normal is because my husband is six foot four."
"It's amazing what the tabloids do," says Saunders. "Sometimes they ring up a celebrity and say, `Listen, we've got the story about your son's drug habit', and there may not be a drug habit but they're just fishing, hoping that you'll break down in tears and agree to do a `confession'.
"That's what they did with [name withheld]," French adds, "they rang him and said, `We're doing a story tomorrow about your sexuality and your cocaine use. Do you want to help us do your version by talking to us?', and some people do, as a damage limitation exercise. I think some people get very shocked and make rash decisions. They did it with Lenny, and this is all I'm going to say about him, but they had this `exclusive' with him full of quotes attributed to him, and he never spoke to them. They made it up in an attempt to bait him out."
"They can be complete shits sometimes," Saunders asserts. "I know that [name withheld] has all these pictures of certain people, and because he's on a moral crusade, he's going to play God with them. It's like he's saying, `I've got this on you, and when I think you're getting too famous or too big for your boots, I'm going to play this card'. It's frightening."
Talk turns to cocaine use, naturally enough. "We're just not drug takers," says French, "but I've been in the company of cocaine users, and they just talk absolute bollocks. It's not even interesting bollocks." "I've been to a certain club in London a few times, which is associated with cocaine use," Saunders says, "and no one has ever offered me any. Sometimes you're sitting there and people will say to you, `Do you need to go to the toilet?', and I'll go, `No, I'm fine', and they'll say, `Well, we're going to the toilet if you want to come', and it's only afterwards you think how naive you were not to pick up on what they were saying."
Certainly though, the last time the two of them toured (back in 1989), it was considered a pretty debauched series of dates? "There was one particular night," chuckles French, "but it really wasn't that bad. The great thing about touring is that you don't have to behave responsibly."
Back then, French and Saunders were still pretty marginalised figures (although they were the undisputed First Ladies of the "alternative" circuit). Both are ex-drama school students (they hated each other on first meeting) who were swept away on the wave of new comedy that made its debut in London's Comedy Store in the early- to mid-1980s before going on to the mainstream. Alongside Ben Elton, Ric Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Alexi Sayle and Keith Allen, they offered a fresh and vital alternative to the then staid end-of-pier, mother-in-law comedy scene. They largely made their name on the back of their performances on Channel 4's Saturday Night Live show and were soon picked up by the BBC, where their own show quickly transferred from BBC2 to BBC1.
More comedy actresses than stand-ups, since that last tour they have concentrated exclusively on television work, establishing lucrative solo careers - Saunders in Absolutely Fabulous and French in The Vicar of Dibley. Given how closely they work together, many were surprised by French's absence from Ab Fab - given that she co-wrote the original sketch on which the series is based. There's a simple reason, they say: they had intended to do the show together, but French's decision to adopt a child meant that, just weeks away from recording, she had to pull out after hearing a child had become available. She didn't want anyone to know why she was pulling out, so Saunders went to the BBC and told them that the writing of the new series of French and Saunders wasn't going well but she had another idea for a sitcom, loosely based around the life and times of the real-life PR woman, Lynn Franks, which they could have instead.
French and Henry's daughter Billie is now nine, while Saunders has three children with her husband, the comic actor Ade Edmondson. French confesses to having been "insanely jealous" of Ab Fab's success at first, but later rejoiced in how good it was and then went on to star in her own Vicar of Dibley sitcom, written by Richard (Blackadder, Four Weddings and a Funeral) Curtis.
Their relationship is complex. They say they've never had an angry word in 20 years of working together, adding that, when they're not working together, they go for months without talking to each other. Unlike other comedy duos, they don't talk over each other or compete in conversation. When one is talking, the other exits the conversation completely, and if they disagree over something (in this case, who the best singer in All Saints is), they'll make their individual points without reference to what the other one is saying.
The two are very different: French is very friendly but very firm of opinion; Saunders is shy and a bit fuzzier about her ideas. French's eyes roam all over the room, while Saunders makes direct eye contact and holds it. It's a difference best exemplified when they're talking about their previous experiences in Ireland. "I almost married an Irish man," French muses, looking out the window. "He was from Cavan, and we were engaged. I was in drama school when I met him. He used to work in the navy. We came over to Dublin loads of time. I've snogged in the Phoenix Park. She [pointing at Saunders] was going to be my bridesmaid." Saunders, by contrast, looks at me intently and says "I've been here on a motorbike - if that's any use to you."
THEIR professional image has been dented of late, thanks to the poorly received Let Them Eat Cake sitcom, which they wrote and starred in; and, more dramatically for Saunders, when a spin-off from Ab Fab, called Mirrorball (with the same cast as Ab Fab but in different roles), took a bit of a hammering. "I didn't love that show," says Saunders, "it was looking at a totally different area to Ab Fab - it was all about failure, and I don't think Joanna Lumley and I fully exploited that. There's not going to be a series, but what I've done is taken some of the ideas that I had for it and used them in the next series of Ab Fab." French, for her part, is soon to play Bottom on stage in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Saying they're a bit nervous about their upcoming Irish gigs at the Point because it will be the largest venue they've played on the tour, they apologise in advance for the video of the new live show being available in the shops before their visit. "What happened," French reveals, "was the tour was supposed to finish last December, so we planned to bring out the video then. We've since been asked to extend the tour so there's nothing we can do about the video being out there."
"There are some new bits in the show, though, that aren't on the video," adds Saunders. "Just say it's a bit like buying an album, then going to see the band play live. But as far as I can see, nobody has bought the bloody video . . . so we should be able to get away with it."
Website: www.frenchandsaunders.com
French and Saunders play Dublin's Point Depot February 7th 10th. There will be two shows on February 10th, at 8 p.m. and 11.30 p.m.