I should note at the start that French and Saunders Titting About contains strong language and adult content. The Audible listing is clear about this, and it is worth flagging before anyone puts this on expecting the clean gentle comedy of The Vicar of Dibley or the more family-friendly end of Saunders’ output. What you are getting is Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders in late-career form: less constrained, more willing to be genuinely absurd, and buoyed by the accumulated confidence of more than four decades of friendship that has clearly outlasted any professional obligation to be careful with each other.
Series 6 of the award-winning show consists of six episodes, each nominally organised around a theme – technology, stress, time travel, manners, the concept of a gap year – and then, as the title perfectly describes, titting about with it for half an hour.
Clara’s Verdict
The format is deceptively simple and specifically resistant to description, because the comedy lives in the texture of the conversation rather than in its content. Dawn and Jennifer do not deliver jokes about technology in Episode Two – they discuss technology in the way two friends who have been in the same business for forty years discuss anything: tangentially, competitively, and with frequent lateral moves into personal stories that were supposed to be illustrative and became the whole point. A segment about ‘Dawn creating a robot Jen’ sounds like a sketch premise, but in practice it functions more like a conversation about what their friendship would look like stripped of its human inconvenience. The AI-generated French and Saunders sketch that apparently appears in the same episode is the kind of thing only these two people could make funny rather than smug.
Episode Three, on stress, is the one I was most interested in: they relieve it by adopting chickens and plucking each other’s facial hairs, which is either a perfect illustration of the specific domestic texture of their friendship or a very committed bit, and probably both. Episode Five on manners – ‘is hugging out of control? What’s the best way to tackle awkward small talk?’ – is the kind of material that lesser comedy would make sharp and sociological; French and Saunders make it personal and physical and therefore funnier and more honest than the thinkpiece version of the same questions.
The single review available calls it ‘hilarious, made me smile and laugh which was much needed’, which is both the right register for the show and an accurate description of the specific service it provides: not challenging laughter, not satirical laughter, but the warm and slightly helpless laughter of recognising two people who are enjoying themselves enormously and letting you join in.
About the Audiobook
Published by Audible Originals in May 2025. Six episodes, each approximately 30 minutes, for a total runtime of 3 hours and 9 minutes. Rating of 5.0 from a single review – a clean signal but a thin one. Produced by Listen Entertainment. This is Series 6, which means there are five preceding series available for those who want to begin at the beginning, and the format has presumably been refined across each iteration. The Audible Original format suits this material well: the conversational texture of the show benefits from the intimacy of headphone listening rather than the projection required for broadcast comedy.
The Narration
Dawn French narrates in the specific sense that she is one of two voices present throughout; this is a conversation-based Audible Original rather than a read-aloud format. Her voice is immediately recognisable and carries a warmth and mischief that have not diminished across her career – if anything, the lack of performative obligation in this format lets more of the actual personality through than the screen work does. The conversational exchanges with Saunders preserve all the interruptions, the laugh-collapses, and the moments where neither of them can arrive at the punchline because the delivery has already overtaken the joke, and Listen Entertainment’s production retains rather than irons out these qualities.
What Readers Say
Only one review is available at time of writing, which is limited evidence for a book published in May 2025. For a sixth series of an established show, the absence of more reviews reflects a loyal audience that does not feel the need to write them rather than a lack of listeners. The single review is enthusiastic and specific enough in its description of the effect – relief, warmth, genuine laughter – to suggest the show is delivering what its established audience expects. The adult content warning means it has not reached the broader casual discovery audience that might otherwise generate more reviews.
Who Should Listen?
Those who have followed previous series of the show and want the new material. Those with a long affection for French and Saunders specifically, rather than for comedy podcast content in general – the pleasure here is particular to these two people and their specific friendship rather than transferable to the broader genre. People who want audio content for commuting or household tasks that is companionable rather than demanding, funny rather than challenging, and whose idea of a good 30 minutes is spending it with two people who are clearly having a better time than most. The adult content flag is worth taking seriously, though this is comfortably in the 15-certificate range rather than anything more extreme. Not suitable for children and not recommended for anyone looking for structured material with information value.
