After Dinner Speakers: Dawn French, Jonathan Dimbleby, Eartha Kitt

Dawn French was born on October 11 1957 in Holyhead, Wales. When she was 11 Dawn went to a weekly boarding school in Plymouth, partly funded by the RAF in which her father served. Dawn has since said that she never fitted in with any of her school friends, who were all from wealthy, upper-class families. Nevertheless she won a debating scholarship to study in New York after leaving school and then went on to train to be a drama teacher at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, where she met Jennifer Saunders. This led onto one of the most successful partnerships in British comedy today; French and Saunders Dawn lives with her husband Lenny Henry and their adopted daughter in Berkshire.