DAWN French has been alive for 30 Million Minutes - and for 120 of those on Saturday night she reduced a Merseyside audience to tears of joy and sadness.

Southport Theatre saw the finale of a five-month, 100-date tour for the 57-year-old, who defied doctors’ advice to appear on stage after suffering severe dizzy spells.

But while she was physically aided by a walking stick, the illness did not stop one of Britain’s favourite comedians from delivering a flawless performance to a sell-out crowd.

Thirty Million Minutes was not Dawn French doing stand-up. It was a monologue of her life and her relationships – but with the inevitable hilarity you would expect from the Vicar of Dibley star.

With a sideshow in the background to illustrate some of her tales with pictures and old video footage, this was a well-written, slick production where French very rarely veered from the script.

In her own inimitable fashion, she talked us through the highs and lows of her life and reflected on her relationships with her family.

She had the audience in stitches about the time she met the Queen Mother as a toddler and recoiled thinking she was a witch because she had black teeth – there was actual video footage to illustrate this.

And in a hilarious self-analysis of her own body – complete with sketched diagram – she talked through what she did and didn’t like including the 42GG breasts she calls Ant and Dec!

But while she may be confident in her own skin now, a collage of tabloid headlines on the screen behind showed that constant analysis of her weight had obviously cut deep in the past, especially when Anne Diamond publicly urged Dawn to confess that her seven-stone weight-loss was down to having a gastric band.

That was particularly hurtful for Dawn who lost weight through diet and exercise on doctors’ advice so that she could have a hysterectomy after a cancer scare.

French was also scathing about a journalist who had pried into the private life of her adopted daughter Billie for an authorised biography.

She took an injunction out against the female author and the venom she felt towards her was quite palpable.

French literally hurtled through two hour-long sets without so much as a sip of water.

The only time she didn’t speak, was when she played a recording from her memoirs about how she felt when her beloved father committed suicide when she was 19 years old. That would have been tough for anyone to ‘perform’ live night after night in front thousands of people.

It was a real rollercoaster of emotions for the audience - sympathy over her father, admiration when she comforted a friend who was going for an abortion at the time she was having IVF and shock and anger when she revealed racists had placed a burning rag through her letterbox and put dog faeces on her door mat when she was with Lenny Henry.

You could feel how much genuine warmth there was in the audience for French and such an honest insight into her life will only endear her more.

I’m sure she could stand on stage and talk about anything for two hours and still have her army of fans in the palm of her hand.

But the best parts of the show where when she had her audience laughing and the happiness she has in her life now and her new marriage is obvious.

French urged her audience to ‘make the most of every minute’.

They certainly did on Saturday.