Clara’s Verdict
There are very few comedy partnerships that feel genuinely irreplaceable — the specific chemistry that makes two people significantly funnier together than either could manage independently. Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders have that quality, and they have had it for four decades now. I’ve followed the Titting About Audible Originals since the first series with the particular pleasure of someone who grew up with French and Saunders on BBC Two and finds, reassuringly, that the intervening years have only deepened what was always there. The friendship feels more settled, the comedy more relaxed, the mutual teasing more precisely calibrated by decades of accumulated ammunition.
Series Five is as effortlessly enjoyable as its predecessors. The format — six episodes, six notionally serious subjects, absolutely no obligation to address any of them with any rigour — remains entirely their own invention and still functions perfectly as a delivery mechanism for whatever they actually want to talk about.
Six Episodes of Cheerful Chaos
This is an Audible Original, produced by Listen Entertainment and released in April 2024. Three hours and one minute across six episodes, each taking a nominally important topic and cheerfully failing to treat it seriously. Episode One opens with a genuine catch-up: Dawn’s new knee, Jennifer’s experience of being eaten alive on stage by a cardboard crocodile (there is theatrical context, but it barely helps explain anything), and an update on a bet from Series Four that apparently remained unresolved. Episode Two finds them role-playing careers — farmer, politician, surgeon — with Jennifer described as alarmingly convincing as a politician, which tells you something either about her talent or about the lowered bar of contemporary political performance. Probably both.
Episode Three is about survival on a desert island and is a definitive practical guide to survival in difficult situations in the sense that it absolutely isn’t and freely admits this. Episode Four, Arty Farty, begins with a chance encounter with Gilbert and George in Paris and includes what sounds like a frequently revisited anecdote about Dawn’s early trips to New York when she was in her twenties, an experience she may have mentioned on one or two previous occasions. Episodes Five and Six cover bad things and the self-identified status of Lucky B*tches respectively, the latter involving the Spice Girls, David Beckham, Dolly Parton, and an involuntary breach of social protocol in the vicinity of King Charles that sounds as though it may have required some recovery time.
It is also worth noting that the Audible Original format suits this kind of material particularly well. The absence of a publisher’s mandate to be educational or to demonstrate value beyond the immediate entertainment allows French and Saunders to follow whatever thread amuses them, which is precisely where their best work has always lived. The appeal of these series is genuinely cumulative. Each episode adds another layer of shared history and mutual teasing onto what came before, and the conversations have an energy that suggests they’re having as much fun recording them as we have listening. That quality of genuine enjoyment in the room is not something you can manufacture.
The Voice of a Very Long Friendship
Dawn French hosts the narration throughout, with both performers present throughout each episode. The audio feels genuinely unguarded in a way that distinguishes it from most polished comedy productions — there are moments where laughter interrupts the material, where tangents develop lives entirely their own, where you sense that the producers wisely decided not to rein in whatever was happening. French’s voice is as warm and precisely timed as it has always been, and the dynamic between the two has the particular comfort of people who no longer need to perform their friendship for anyone, including the microphone. That ease is the whole point of the series, and it’s present throughout.
What Readers Say
Rated 5.0 out of 5 from one Audible UK rating — a small sample that nonetheless reflects the consistent enthusiastic reception these series have received. There are no written reviews available at time of writing, which for an Audible Original with a relatively small but deeply devoted audience is not unusual. The previous series have built quietly loyal listeners who return reliably for each new instalment, and Series Five shows every sign of sustaining that audience without needing to expand it through marketing noise.
Who Should Listen?
Anyone who has enjoyed any of the earlier Titting About series — this is more of the same, and in this particular case that is unambiguously a good thing. Also ideal for listeners who love French and Saunders’ broader catalogue and want something that feels like genuine eavesdropping on a long friendship rather than consuming a polished product designed for an audience. At three hours, it’s a perfectly sized companion for a long walk, a train journey, or an afternoon when you need something that will make you laugh without requiring anything of you in return. Not recommended as a first introduction to either performer’s work — start with Series One to get the full cumulative effect, then work forwards. Listen on Audible UK
