Weekend Woman’s Hour: Dawn French, Alexis Ohanian, Ladies loos on stage
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Comedian, actor and writer Dawn French is best known as one half of one of the UK’s most successful comedy double acts, and as the fictional vicar Geraldine Granger. She’s also a bestselling author, and her latest book, Enough, is her fifth novel — her eighth book in total. It blends dark humour with some tougher themes she thinks are important to explore. She joined Nuala to discuss.
Best known as the co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian is now turning his focus to the future of women’s sport. Once overlooked and underfunded, it is now undergoing rapid change. Alexis is today announcing he's bringing his all-female track and field meet series, Athlos, to London. He tells Anita Rani why, and talks about being married to one of the most successful and well known sports stars of all time - Serena Williams.
We discuss a new play that unfolds entirely in the ladies loos. April Hope Miller wrote and performs in ‘Flush’, it was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and it’s just opened at the Arcola Theatre in London. April and co-star Jazz Jenkins tell Nuala why the real drama on any night out is always to be found in the women’s toilets. And why it took an ensemble cast of five, playing no less 16 different characters between them, to capture something universal about women's lives.
Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | Things just swirling around my head. |
| 0:09.6 | Am I really the product of this? |
| 0:12.1 | Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests. |
| 0:17.0 | Little did I know what more was to come. |
| 0:19.5 | I'm Jenny Clemen, and in the new series of The Gift, we'll hear more stories emerging |
| 0:25.2 | out of the ever-expanding global DNA database. |
| 0:28.8 | They did know that I was different. |
| 0:31.7 | You had kids together. |
| 0:33.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:33.5 | Then you met. |
| 0:34.3 | Then we met. |
| 0:35.2 | The Gift. |
| 0:36.1 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.4 | Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:44.4 | Hello and welcome to the programme. |
| 0:46.8 | Coming up, Dawn French, comedian, actor and also best-selling novelist on her latest book, |
| 0:52.7 | Enough, in which she talks about aging and deciding |
| 0:56.0 | when to die. Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, who also happens to be married to Serena |
| 1:02.7 | Williams, on bringing his all-female track and field meat series Athlos to London. And a new play |
| 1:09.5 | called Flush, one night, one club. Sixteen women passing through |
| 1:14.4 | the ladies' loos with all the confessions and connections that can bring. Now, she's one half of the |
... |
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