12 things we learned about Dawn French

Dawn French spoke to Victoria Coren Mitchell for Radio 4 - the woman who crashed her car into roadworks on her driving test - about her life on the road for Radio 4's Women Talking About Cars. This is what she revealed.

1. “I am,” says Dawn, “the most excellent driver you will ever meet and that is a fact.” She finds it hard to relinquish the steering wheel to anyone.

2. She passed her driving test the second time, due to a) nerves and b) trying to make the driving instructor laugh. He didn’t.

3. For her 17th birthday she was given a second-hand black Morris Minor that came with a bow around it.

4. As the daughter of an RAF officer she went to a posh boarding school. The other girls had brand new cars; as hers was second hand she decided to make the Morris Minor funny by painting “the bomb” on it.

5. “I feel grown up when I drive my Range Rover,” she says.

6. She was the designated driver for her friends as a teenager, and drove Jennifer Saunders around to gigs when they started their comedy partnership: as an infrequent drinker she still frequently finds herself the designated driver.

7. She has done “upstairs outsidies” in her car. (Don’t ask!)

8. Dawn’s parents had a Rover 2000 and drove with the windows tight shut at all times. She says both her parents chain-smoked and her father couldn’t see out of the windscreen because of the smog.

Reprising her role as Geraldine Granger from The Vicar of Dibley for Radio 4 in 2014

9. Adrian Edmonson drove the Ford Cortina she had at aged 21 into a lamp post and smashed it up. She has not yet forgiven him.

10. She’s a bit of a speed freak and has had to do a driver safety course. In fact she was done in both Cornwall and Devon on the same night for speeding.

11. She fought with her brother to such an extent that to this day she cannot sit next to her brother “without hurting him”.

12. Ever conscious of impending disaster, she packs as if she is permanently about to head into a blizzard. “Blankets, water, rope… I have a very well packed boot and I'm prepared for everything,” she says. She is in fact so successfully prepared she cannot fit anything else in the boot.

Speedy, determined and nippy, Dawn drives like she lives, and we’ll read a map for her any time!

Listen to her conversation with Victoria Coren Mitchell online now.