When filming began on Roald and Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse, Dawn French hugged on-screen husband Rob Brydon a little too long because, she told Ryan Tubridy, it felt "so bloomin' good".
"I had to hug him on the first day of filming and it felt very strange because I hadn't hugged anyone for months, except for people in my family."
Dawn plays Beatrix Potter in Sky's film about the real-life meeting of Potter and the young Roald Dahl. Needless to say, Ireland's number one Roald Dahl fan Ryan was more than a little interested in the fact – which he hadn't known about – that 6-year-old Dahl had met his idol Potter. Dawn didn't reveal much, aside from the fact that Beatrix Potter was, like Roald Dahl, quite a bit darker than she gets credit for. It will all, one assumes, become clear when the film arrives on our screen this Christmas.
The very busy comedian/actor/writer Dawn French also spoke about her new novel, Because of You. It tells the intriguing-sounding story of a woman who steals another woman's baby and raises the child as her own. Dawn was fascinated by the question of whether or not we could forgive someone who does such a terrible thing:
"How could you ever forgive her? Surely you couldn't. But, it's my job as the writer to challenge myself to see if we can understand this woman, wrap our understanding around her and wrap our forgiveness around her."
The baby-stealing is just the start of the story, as the novel charts the life of the child who left hospital with the wrong mother and who finds out when she's 18 that her whole life is nothing like she thought it was.
"Really, I guess, I want to explore themes of identity and belonging and family and what we're made of. Whether we're made of our DNA or whether we're made of who's there for us and who steps up for us."
Dawn’s story has resonance in her own life (no, she hasn't stolen someone else's baby), as she has an adopted daughter and the whole swirling, complicated notions of family dynamics are present in her life, as well as in the story of Because of You. And if Dawn's daughter, who's now 30, ever wishes to trace her birth mother, then Dawn will support her all the way:
"That's the deal with an adopted kid. That's the contract, the moral contract, you make, which is, 'I will support you in everything you need to do.' Because these are exceptional circumstances. But there are many people to protect. There's my daughter to protect and there's also that birth mother who I don't know, but I love very much and I have a lot to be thankful for."
Mother love is central to Dawn's book and also in her own life. You can hear more from Ryan and Dawn's conversation, including some scoops on Death on the Nile and The Vicar of Dibley, by going here.
Because of You by Dawn French is published by Michael Joseph.
Niall Ó Sioradáin