• Christmas Day 2-4pm — with Hilary Devey and Clare Balding and includes the Queen’s Christmas message
• New Year’s Day 1-3pm — with Sharon Gless and Kirsty Wark
• 2 January 2-4pm — with Michael Palin and Tracey Emin

If you can’t catch the shows live, listen again on BBC iPlayer (see all).

Julia Sawlha (Saffy Monsoon), Joanna Lumley (Patsy), June Whitfield (Mother) and Jane Horrocks (Bubble) all return to the show, which is centered on the world of PR.

The audacious antics of Edina and Patsy epitomised Nineties excess and continued on and off till 2004. This Christmas’s two episodes will be shown on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, with a third show for 2012 to coincide with the London Olympics.

Episode one, entitled ‘Identity’, sees a homecoming in the Monsoon household with a not-necessarily-welcome best friend in tow.

Absolutely Fabulous Christmas Day 10.00pm and New Year’s Day 9.40pm, BBC One

Set the dial for BBC Radio 2, Monday 30th May 2011, 12pm

UPDATE! They’re back for an additional show this August Bank Holiday:

• Monday, 29 August 2011, 12pm — with guests Prof Brian Cox and Matt Lucas. (see all)

They’ll be back on Radio 2 at Christmas.

Dawn French returns as the nurse with a special baby, Joy Aston.

Psychoville 2 starts Thursday 5 May 2011, 10pm, BBC Two (see all)

They’re commandeering the airwaves to present special shows for BBC Radio 2 with a seasonal mix of music, chat and guests.

• Boxing Day, 26 Dec 5pm — with guests Miranda Hart and Gok Wan
• New Year’s Day, 10am — with Jo Brand and Benedict Cumberbatch
• 3 January 2011, 3pm — with Kate Rusby and Judy Craymer

UPDATE! They’re back for more shows this Easter:

• Good Friday, 22 April 2011, 12pm — with guests Wayne Sleep and Dr Christian Jessen
• Easter Monday, 25 April 2011, 12pm — with world record holding sailor Dee Caffari
• Bank Holiday Monday, 2 May 2011, 12pm — live from Plymouth with Cornwall-based eco champion Dick Strawbridge and, continuing the trend of guests bringing their mums, Dawn and Jennifer are joined by theirs! (see all programmes)

As a child, Dawn French met the Queen Mother when her family received a visit from her at the RAF base where they lived. Now the scene is recreated for one of the episodes, with French playing the Queen Mum opposite her four-year-old self.

Also appearing in their own short films will be Catherine Tate, Kathy Burke, Stephen Fry, Victoria Wood and Bill Bailey.

Little Crackers runs for seven nights from 19 December, Sky1. Dawn French’s episode is on Christmas Eve at 9pm.

Collection includes:

• Series 1-5
• The Last Shout
• The Gay Special
• White Box

4+ hours of special features:

• How To Be Absolutely Fabulous — A behind-the-scenes look at Ab Fab
• Absolutely Fabulous: A Life — Edina looks back on her life
• Modern Mother and Daughter — The sketch that started it all
• Behind-the-scenes interviews with Joanna Lumley, Jennifer Saunders, Jon Plowman and June Whitfield
• Mirrorball — Pilot episode of the spin-off
• Rare outtakes
• Photo galleries
• Audio commentary by Jennifer Saunders and Jon Plowman

She also chatted with Radio 2’s Simon Mayo about her new book, A Tiny Bit Marvellous. Catch the interview on iPlayer for the next 7 days; it starts at about 1hr 06mins in.

She has also recorded a video interview on the book’s Amazon page, together with a letter to that website’s customers.

In the video she discusses the writing process, including brushing up on Oscar Wilde and becoming Barbara Cartland, with six surprised readers.

The book follows French’s autobiographical outing, Dear Fatty, in 2008 and is her first novel.

The series explores the everyday of Roger and Val Stevenson (Alfred Molina and French), a middle-aged couple returning home from work, at which point we see each episode begin.

Although the idea for Roger and Val Have Just Got In was Dawn’s, she decided against writing the series herself, instead inviting twin sisters Emma and Beth Kilcoyne to do the honours. “I have a lot of respect for their work,” says Dawn. “They’re better writers than me and I felt this had a kind of drama tone with which I’m not familiar. We got together a few years ago, had lots of meetings and it grew organically from there.”

What follows is the half-hour where the couple recount their day to each other as well as an exploration of the chat and minutiae of a settled couple’s evening routine.

For her, it may involve her energetic day teaching at the local comprehensive. For him, his devoted work as a botanist at the Winter Gardens.

“Val is a food technology teacher,” Dawn says of her character. “She’s a ferocious advocate of it and gets furious when it’s sidelined in the school curriculum. She’s a bit of a control freak, a bit pedantic and wants to win every moment. Roger understands that about her and allows it - one of the things I love about it is there’s lots of dovetailing.”

The daily ritual is examined over six episodes starting Friday 6th August, BBC Two (see all).

In this series, Sal’s (Sue Johnston) daughter Tash decides she wants to live as an ‘urban forager’ — living off free food.

Writer Jennifer Saunders says, “Tash’s character was based on the fact that a lot of stuff was coming out in the papers as soon as the credit crunch hit, based around these stories of everyone getting into that whole hippy lifestyle, growing food in gardens and saving odd bits and pieces — so Tash was born from that.”

Meanwhile Caroline, played by Saunders, sees her son sent to fight in Afghanistan.

“One of the episodes is based on the fact that one of her sons is now in the Army and has been sent to Afghanistan. She is completely emotionally uninvolved, and while everyone else is crying she isn’t, explaining that it will be good for him and it will toughen him up.”

And the inspiration for Caroline? “The character was originally based on a sketch that Dawn [French] and I created in which I played Chris Martin’s mother.”

Jam and Jerusalem starts Sunday 9 August 8.00-9.00pm, BBC One (3 episodes; see all)

Buy Jam and Jerusalem from Amazon.co.uk (affiliate):

• Jam and Jerusalem - Series 1-3 [DVD]

Psychoville explores the lives of five curious characters — spread around the country and apparently unconnected. One thing unites them; they have each received an anonymous card that warns, “I know what you did…”

Dawn French plays Joy Aston, a desperately misguided midwife with a very odd child. As she and the other characters receive this chilling message, we follow their everyday, strange and scary lives.

Among the other characters are:

• Mr Jelly (Reece Shearsmith) — an embittered hook-handed clown and children’s entertainer. Mr Jelly is tormented by the success of his rival Mr Jolly
• Robert (Jason Tompkins) — a love-struck telekinetic dwarf. Robert is performing in Snow White as Blusher and in love with his panto Snow White
• Debbie/Snow White (Daisy Haggard) — Debbie is beautiful and not very smart
• David Sowerbutts (Steve Pemberton) — a serial-killer-obsessed man-child

A big part of this dark world is the online experience that the show’s creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have written to run in parallel with the show. Each character gets their own website with video, plus extra comedy and details about them. Users can also interact with the mystery blackmailer or blackmail a friend through a viral tie-in with The Graham Norton Show.

Psychoville starts Thursday 18 June 2009 10pm, BBC Two (see all)

The tour will bring together new material with the best F&S characters and sketches from past.

They’ll travel the country on a string of dates from 26 June-29 July 2009 starting in Newcastle, New South Wales and ending in Adelaide, South Australia.

They will be handed the Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, a prestigious award that recognises achievement on film and television.

In winning this award, French and Saunders will join the club with fellow comedians such as Morcambe and Wise, but also film legends such as Anthony Hopkins and Ingmar Bergman (spot the connections?).

See the full list of people who have been awarded the Fellowship since its creation in 1971.

The British Academy Television Awards is on Sunday 26 April, 8pm BBC One.