Dear Fatty

Written as a collection of letters to her late father and various other relatives and friends, Dear Fatty is so much a very private autobiography coming from Dawn French, to the extent that I found myself extensively Googling the various names and places I wasn't familiar with, thus disrupting the flow of my read.

Some of the chapters were very endearing, like meeting The Queen Mother at a young age and a chapter dedicated to (her now ex-husband) Lenny Henry. Other sections were quite odd, employing a West Country accent to try and entice Madonna to collaborate and the extended joke/sketch ideas to ‘Fatty', which again I didn't get.

What did stick out however, is that large parts of this were very rambly, in that there's plenty to read, but didn't seem to say a lot. As French has maintained a high level of privacy throughout her career and also by her own admittance, I feel the whole thing could have gone much deeper in places.

In all, a nice (meh) read, but it may not mean a lot if you're not British or aware of Dawn.