I want to know what she feels about everything, what she’s seen, what she’s experienced, how she’s changing. She’s very mercurial, and I’m fascinated by how she perceives things I didn’t know I would be quite as obsessional. It’s as well I’ve only got one child.”Billie was adopted, and I tell French that I was, too. In fact, the next five minutes of the precious hour I have been allocated are taken up with her asking questions of me Like Billie, I was an only child. I ask French, who is 44, whether she and Henry have ever considered adopting another child, or trying to have one naturally (not even her unofficial biographer, Alison Bowyer, who otherwise did a thoroughly nosy job, was able to find out whether one or other is unable to have children).”We did think about it, yes But I didn’t want to do it enough. Then I started to realise that the only reason for it would be to provide a companion for her, and I didn’t think I could look a kid in the face and say, ‘You were really a pet’. I thought we might as well get a dog, which, in fact, we’ve just done.”If another kid had happened, I guess I would have felt differently, but it’s such a total life-changing thing, I’m not sure I’d have the energy to do it all over again Motherhood has tested me beyond belief It’s absolutely not what I thought it was going to be It’s almost the opposite, in fact.

I thought, in typical Dawn-style, that I’d be able to organise her into my life, but in fact we’ve all been organised into hers.”And although I didn’t have the hormonal thing after we adopted Billie, I still went slightly mad When I went back to work, I’d gone a bit cardigan I hadn’t read anything, hadn’t talked to anyone Well, I had with Len, but I just felt very fat-headed I think a lot of women go through it It’s possibly nature’s way of making you go all domestic. You’d better not be longing to read a book, because you need to mash up more carrots.”Jen [Saunders] has three kids, but she does it much better. She’s one of those women who can manage [motherhood] without it taking over too much There are others of us who can’t. It totally drains you, and you realise that you’re not the person you thought you were.

Suddenly, you’re this person called Mum – and it’s not a bad thing, it’s quite a good thing – but it takes a while to retrieve your personality.”And you can’t write comedy when your head feels full of cotton wool I was angry about that. I know it’s something men think happens to women when they have babies, and I was really annoyed that I had it Because I was out to lunch for a long time. It was like walking through treacle, though I got there in the end. Which is a long explanation of why I don’t really want to do it all over again. I went back to work with very little confidence, and I’d never had that before.”Just to compound that feeling of insecurity, of standing at the sidelines while the comedy bandwagon rolled on without her, it was while French took time off during the adoption process that Saunders, for want of anything better to do, turned a short sketch that the pair of them had performed into the hit sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Still, French has benefited from Saunders’ Ab Fab-inspired popularity in America, for the pair are currently discussing an option to develop their stage show for US consumption Not that it will be easy to find the time. French is committed to starring in a new sitcom, written by Simon Nye, in which she plays a grumpy Cornishwoman, enabling her to crank up those West Country vowels.