Dawn French says 'cheap' reality shows are killing new comedy programmes

Dawn French says "cheap" reality shows are killing comedy programmes.

The ‘French & Saunders’ icon has questioned why any TV channels would want to splash out on new comedy shows when they can make series such as 'Love Island'.

She said: “We live in the world of reality TV where it’s so cheap that even if you take everyone to ‘Love Island’, the people are costing you nothing.

“You’ve got hours and hours of telly and all you’re really having to pay for is the technicians.

"A couple of houses and your cameras and your crew. Why would you spend money on comedy?”

As a result, the ‘Vicar of Dibley’ star, 64 - who won a BAFTA for her titular portrayal of Geraldine Granger in the show - doesn't believe her classic sketch show 'French and Saunders', in which she starred opposite Jennifer Saunders, would be made nowadays.

She is quoted by The Sun newspaper's TV Biz column as saying: “We’d never be able to make ‘French and Saunders’ in this day and age.

“We would go to them and say we want to do some characters, we need you to build a dentist office, prosthetics that cost £3k each and I don’t know quite what we’re gonna do when we’re in the prosthetics.”

French and Saunders briefly moved onto a series called ‘Jam and Jerusalem’, which was axed from the BBC after three series.

Speaking about the decision to end the show, Jennifer said at the time: “They are not making the kind of comedy we used to do – they want populist programmes. There isn’t a budget to try more ambitious things.”