Dawn French is one-half of Britain's top female comedy duo, French and Saunders, as well as a highly successful writer, comedian, and actress in her own right. She and partner Jennifer Saunders have become an outstanding double act while also pursuing successful solo careers.

French's television debut was an auspicious one, as a member of a group of "alternative" comedians known as the Comic Strip, on the opening night of Britain's fourth TV channel, Channel 4, in 1982. "Five Go Mad in Dorset," a spoof of author Enid Blyton's popular children's adventure books, clearly showed that French was a comic actress to watch. The following two years saw two series of The Comic Strip Presents in which French played everything from housewives to hippies.

In 1985 French approached the kind of comedy that she and Saunders would eventually make very much their own. Girls on Top, a sitcom about four bizarre young women sharing a flat in London, gave French, as co-star and co-writer, a chance to further develop the type of character she loves to play. Amanda was an overgrown teenager, sexually inexperienced and yet aware of the sexual powers of women. A second series followed in 1986, as did appearances with Saunders on Channel 4's cult late-night comedy show Saturday Live, but in 1987 French and Saunders moved as a double act to the BBC for their own co-written series, French and Saunders. This was broadcast on BBC 2, the nurturing ground for so much of Britain's new generation of comic talent. This first series took the form of a cheap and badly rehearsed variety show, hosted by the two women. Saunders was the rather grumpy, irritable half of the partnership, with French portraying a bouncy, enthusiastic, schoolgirlish character. This format was dropped for the second series, and instead the programs were a mixture of sketches and spoofs.

With an uncanny ability to pick up on the foibles and fears of childhood, and particularly teenage girlhood, French always played the fervent, excitable girl, generally leading the more sullen and awkward Saunders into mischief. This ability to draw on universal but common­ place memories of what now seem petty and trivial matters of girlhood (such as crushes on boys) and turn them into fresh and original comedy is one of the things that has set French and her partner above virtually all other female performers except, perhaps, Victoria Wood. Further series of French and Saunders have seen their transfer from BBC 2 to BBC 1. While their inventiveness has increased, there has been no diminution in their ability to latch on to the way women behave with each other. In particular they have become skilled at extraordinarily clever film spoofs, with French playing Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music one week and Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs the next.

French's first solo starring role came in 1991 with Murder Most Horrid, a series of six comic dramas with a common theme of violent death, in which she played a different role every week. The series was commissioned for French and enabled her to play everything from a Brazilian au pair in "The Girl from Ipanema" to a naive policewoman in "The Case of the Missing." Further series of Murder Most Horrid have seen the roles becoming even more ambitious.

If there had been any doubt about French's acting ability, this had been dispelled the previous year, 1993, in the BBC Screen One drama Tender Loving Care. In this work, French played a night nurse in the geriatric ward of a hospital. There, she helped many of her charges "on their way" with her own brand of tender loving care, believing that by killing them she is doing them a service. It was a beautifully understated and restrained performance.

After the General Synod of the Church of England voted to pennit women to become priests, one French and Saunders sketch concerned French's receipt of a vicar's outfit after having received permission to become the first female comedy vicar, complete with buck teeth and dandruff. This soon proved prophetic, when French was cast as the Reverend Geraldine Granger, "a babe with a bob and a magnificent bosom," in Richard Curtis's The Vicar of Dibley. French's portrayal of a fe­ male vicar sent to a small, old-fashioned, country parish is possibly her most popular to date. The public quickly took this series to their hearts, and French shone even within an ensemble cast of experienced character actors. French's influence can probably be felt in other areas of British comedy too. She was married to Britain's top Black comedian, Lenny Henry, and is often quoted as having influenced him during the early stage of their relationship to abandon his then somewhat self-deprecating humor, in order to explore what it is like to be a Black Briton today.

French and Saunders currently have an exclusive contract with the BBC that gives them a wide scope for expanding beyond the confines of their double act. Their first project, Dusty, a documentary about Dusty Springfield, was not entirely successful, and the sitcom Let Them Eat Cake, set during the French Revolution, was not well received by either critics or public. Further solo projects, such as Ted and Alice and Wild West, have not found favor with the public either. However, the now all-too-infrequent special editions of French and Saunders are as fresh and funny as ever, with the movie spoofs including Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. French also remains a stalwart of the BBC's biannual fund-raising for the charity Comic Relief. There can be no doubt that whether it is as part of a double act or as a solo actress, Dawn French can be assured of a place at the heart of British television for a considerable number of years.