Dawn French

So who are your biggest influences then? Oh, well, I suppose as I was growing up, I mean, not that much.

older than me but Victoria Wood and Julie Walters and all of that cohort and then French and Saunders I mean I just absolutely adored both of those and think that we don't have enough similar work going on today really and people like Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and in my younger years even Joyce Grenfell because I remember One of the moments where I really knew I wanted to act was at the girls' school.

And we did a set of review sketches.

And I did a sort of Joyce Grenfell, Jolly Hockey Sticks type character.

anyway.

I'll never forget the year that we said Mitch was distantly related to Dawn French and everyone was like, well, that's true.

You look like her.

What? It wasn't true.

It's out of place a little bit.

Yeah, it also doesn't help that this particular sort of grading of black and white that they're doing this in and the camera quality evokes nothing to me so much as a particular advert for Stella Artois beer making fun of pretentious French films

their little World War I mess tins and World War I chalice of Stella Artois

I legitimately when starting up this movie in a very legal way as I always obtain these

Yeah, so in this hotel we see someone who is as yet unnamed sending a mysterious telegram.

He will later be revealed to be Cousin Andrew rather than Uncle Andrew, downgraded.

We are introduced to French Anne Saunders as a little double act here playing Mrs.

Van Schuyler and her nurse Mrs. Bowers, who you remember as Maggie Smith from the other one.

It's Jennifer Saunders.

So she plays Adina and she had been working with this woman, Dawn French, who is also like a British actor personality.

She writes knitting books.

Like, I mean, it's all over the place.

You can say that again.

The Blood of Dawn French wrote in and says, does Chris disavow the ritual network?

What was the Ritual Network again? I completely forgot.

The Ritual Network.

Right.

So like, you know, I just, I got to do more research.

Blood of Dawn French.

The Blood of

yeah so this is part of the same bits because I wasn't sure how many bits I could bring so I brought lots but um this is a coffin shaped key ring on which it says yodo which is you only die once so Chris Allinger had um a living funeral which she called her funeral And basically it was a funeral before she died.

So she hired out Truro Cathedral and she somehow managed to get Dawn French to perform as the Vicar of Dibley in the character of the Vicar of Dibley.

So we were all congregated in Truro Cathedral.

Dawn French runs in she does this skit as the vicar of Dibley pretending that she's gone to the wrong funeral and that she's at the funeral of Chris who was like a criminal or something and she's talking about him and then um and then she's like oh no no no sorry sorry sorry sorry it's Chris Hallinger and and so leads into it in this way and then Chris did a speech her sister did a speech their wonderful friend Kate did a speech and you know they did eulogies and beautiful speeches but there was music there were performances there was a gospel choir um there was this incredible um thing suspended from the roof like performances suspended from the roof and for the invitations they sent out a little coffin shaped box in the post with two little vials of tequila and a little rolled up scroll with an invitation from chris who just had this incredible, remarkable way of making you laugh as well as cry in absolutely everything she did.

And the day itself, the party itself was just beyond words.

I could never describe how magical it was.