Dear Fatty by Dawn French

No. of pages: 366
Rating: 10/10

Synopsis: It's become a cliché in Britain to call somebody in the entertainment field a national institution -- but that's exactly what Dawn French is. As both comedienne and actress (the latter in both comedy and straight parts), she has become one of the best loved entertainers in the country. Her range is not wide (unlike her dimensions -- and that's the sort of joke she’d crack), but she is utterly winning in everything he does. And that quality continues in Dear Fatty, a truly entertaining memoir of an event-packed life.

The form of the book is a series of letters by French, conjuring her transformation from a West Country RAF girl to a star of the cult alternative comedy group The Comic Strip. This was followed by the groundbreaking all-female Girls on Top (which did much to establish the position of women in British comedy), the astonishing success of the TV series French and Saunders (with French’s equally talented friend Jennifer Saunders) and the sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, where French’s wickedly sardonic touch keeps the tweeness of the basic situation -- female vicar in a rustic town -- at bay.

Review: Written in the form of letters to various people in her life, Dawn French writes about particular moments that had a strong impact on her such as her father's suicide, meeting and marrying Lenny Henry, IVF and miscarrages, and the adoption of their daughter, but mixed in with this are her carefree days growing up with her brother, living in America for a year, going to university, meeting Jennifer Saunders and much more funniness!

This is a rollercoaster of a book, there are stories which have you in stitches of laughter and then on the next page a story that is really sad. I loved how frank she was, especially in talking about Lenny cheating on her, I think that's a really brave thing as she could have very easily left it out with the format that the book's in. The letters are a really nice layout, especially when she writes the letters to her dad catching him up on her life. If you're a fan of Dawn French you should definitely read this book, her humour really shines through, and it's a great insight into her life.