French and Saunders
television series
French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring comedy duo and namesakes Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders that originally broadcast on BBC2 from 1987 to 1993, and later on BBC One until 2017. It is also the name by which the performers are known when they appear elsewhere as a double act. The show was given one of the highest budgets in BBC history to create detailed spoofs and satires of popular culture, movies, celebrities, and art. French and Saunders continued to film holiday specials for the BBC, and both have been individually successful starring in other shows.
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, the duo were voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Their last special, French and Saunders Christmas Celebrity Special, aired on 27 December 2005 on BBC One. In 2006, both French and Saunders announced their sketch show was dead and that they had moved on to more age-appropriate material. Their last time performing as a duo, the Still Alive tour, ran initially until late 2008, then resumed in Australia in summer 2009. In 2009, the duo were jointly awarded the BAFTA Fellowship, due to their significant international influence on satire and sketch comedy. Since 2009, French and Saunders decided to occasionally do more satire usually for comic relief including Mamma Mia, Gogglebox and The Traitors.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “French and Saunders” is television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through French, Saunders and television, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “television series” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1455241. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1987, 1993, 2017 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “French and Saunders” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.