...brought to you by the first-ever Mazda CX3. Tonight on Sunday what a dying dad did for his baby girl. Her father's greatest joy. You have no idea how much I wish I could be with you. You have no idea how much I love you. 89 rounds of chemo. Feeling pretty nauseous. We rallied behind him. It doesn't do it justice when you say thank you for $169,000. Now he's left a legacy for his child. I am actually fulfilling a dying man's last wish. BABY: Daddy. I am 39 and I have frozen nine eggs. I'm 44 and I have 10 eggs on ice. I'm 36 and I've decided to freeze my eggs. Single women demanding the gift of time,... I'm super excited. ...and super smart companies like Facebook and Apple are jumping on the bandwagon. We try to follow our employees. How dare an employer get involved in a women's reproductive life and her decision. Mmmmm. Pineapple lumps. I am absolutely perfect. Perfect proportions. My dad just told me I looked absolutely beautiful. Her beloved dad. So I could not possibly leave my dad out of it or what happened to him. Jennifer Saunders. I'd punch her if she came on the stage. Our audience with Dawn French. Captions by Anne Langford. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015 Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. Jared Noel was the young doctor dying of cancer while expecting his first child with wife Hannah. He nearly didn't get to meet his baby, but the generosity of Kiwis saw him receive a life-prolonging drug. So Jared got to spend eight precious months with daughter Elise before he died, and he didn't waste a moment of it. Tonight, a dying father's unique legacy for his baby girl. Here's Libby Middlebrook. This is much easier, and she can, like, look at you, and so this is actually good. This bouncer's perfect for her. He just adored her, and she brought so much fun and light and laughter to his life where there was a real... a lack of those things. (TRILLS) (LAUGHS) She... She was life-giving in more ways than one. From the moment Elise Noel was born, she was her father's greatest joy, and in death, his most profound regret. Up until that point that Elise came along, he would have said that he would have died a happy man at that point. I think Elise just threw open everything that he was going to miss out on. You have no idea how much I wish I could be with you, (CRIES) no idea how much I love you. A young father dying of cancer, he had but one final wish, documented in this recording. I want her to be able to know me. She's not going to know me based on memories. I want her to be able to have an understanding of who her father was. A legacy for his daughter, but would there be time? This guy, who I've never met, his final act is to give a stranger his story. This is... This is incredible. His name was Dr Jared Noel. Yeah? Any stomach pain associated with it? The young house surgeon with terminal bowel cancer who won the hearts of Kiwis, openly sharing his battle with the disease. When I work, it's like life is back to normal. There's a real sense that it means that chemo is not... or cancer is not the core thing of what my life is about. Most patients have 12 to 24 rounds of chemotherapy. Jared had 89. Feeling pretty sorry for myself but that's pretty normal for a Friday. For the past hour or so,... (HICCUPS) I've been plagued with hiccups which I sometimes get and sometimes don't, and there's not really any way of getting rid of them except for lying down. (HICCUPS) He had everything to live for ` career and newly married. For most of our marriage we lived with cancer, so it was part of the furniture in our house. Did it change the way you lived? Only in terms of the pattern that it brought to our lives, so diagnosis and then chemotherapy, but in many other ways he was really determined to continue doing the things that he'd always wanted to do. Like pursuing their dream to have a family. I think the thing that clinched it for us was there was a real sense that we would never regret having a child, but we would quite possibly regret not having one. Jared's cancer was stable when Hannah got pregnant through IVF. But during her pregnancy, it became aggressive again. My liver looked like Swiss cheese. It was then that it was like, 'Oh,' you know, 'It's sketchy now. 'It could actually be a challenge to be there for the birth.' Then the extraordinary happened. A friend set up a 'givealittle' page, and the money poured in, funding the life-prolonging drug Avastin,... He responded really well to that drug, and he was well for, really, maybe five, six months afterwards. ...buying time enough to meet his little girl, Elise Alexandra Grace. She's just going through that opening eyes and just fixating on your face and staring at you. From the get-go he could settle her really well, and you can just see the connection between them. So far it hasn't been too bad, has it? What goes through my head is, like, you know, 'I remember this right now really well 'and I really enjoy this moment, but, you know, unless I'm around in four or five years' time, 'you're never going to remember me.' A thought that began to plague him more and more as Elise flourished and his own body submitted to cancer. He wanted to be known by his daughter, and as soon as he realised that he-he wasn't gonna have time himself to tell her the stories of his life and the things he'd learnt and the things that he really wanted her to know, that was the time at which he realised it was almost a necessity to tell his story. With only weeks left to live, Jared decided to do the impossible. He wanted to write a book, though he couldn't do it alone. To be given an opportunity to tell a story like this was, um... I couldn't have gone out and found a story like that. David Williams was an out-of-work journalist whose magazine business had just failed... I was already in a difficult spot, you know. It's quite an emotional journey to go through, having a business fall over. ...when a mutual friend told him about Jared. 'He's got about eight weeks to live. His one regret is that he hasn't written down his story. 'You clearly have time on your hands. Would you like to sit with him and see where it goes?' The man he met was frail but with an unwavering sense of purpose. We just started to talk. Within minutes we were planning how a book would be structured. He was just right there, ready to go. It would be Jared's memoir, the story of his life and death, for Elise. It must have felt a real privilege to be invited into a place like this at such a time. It was a privilege. It was a strange feeling. It... I felt like I was intruding on a very sacred place. We didn't know him from a bar of soap, and he... here he was visiting this young man in his final days, but he was up for the challenge, and he was always respectful. How did you come to terms with what you were doing? I came to terms with all of that with the fact that this is what Jared wants; I'm actually fulfilling a dying man's last wish. In all, they spoke 21 times. David sat beside Jared's bed as he shared his innermost thoughts. Every interview lasted roughly an hour. Every hour was carved up into three parts. The first part, the first 15 or 20 minutes, was a recap of how he was feeling, what dying was like today. The reality is there are times when I do want to give up, because this is just hard work. I guess this was the last great taboo, and he said, 'Let's shatter that with this book. 'Let's make people confront what it's actually like to die.' And at other times he spoke only for Elise. He would speak to Elise at the end of our interviews as if she was standing at the foot of the bed. I want her to understand that just because we grow up in white middle-class NZ doesn't mean that this is the only way that there is to live. He would gaze off. He wouldn't look at me, and I could see that he was picturing what Elise would be like at certain times in her life. I want her to know that there are other people with different points of view and why do they have those different points of view. What was he like towards the end? He describes every day being like a mountain, and, you know, in those final days, every day was like Everest, and it was all he could do just to get through the day. Was he ready to go? Yeah. He, um, woke up, I think it was the Sunday before the Wednesday that he died, and he said to me, 'Why am I still alive?' I came to see something quite incredible in the dynamic between Hannah and Jared. Her strength and grace and attention and presence in those days was quite incredible. Jared died at home on a spring morning last October. In the midst of that grief and that devastation, I remember feeling just so proud of what he'd done and the way that he had really got the most out of his life. I couldn't have asked any more of him. Jared's very last words to me were, 'Thanks for doing this. I trust you with my story.' David wrote it in a week, buried away in a tiny west-coast bach. He finished it on Elise's first birthday. Coming here, I guess part of it was being alone with Jared's voice and Jared's thoughts and being able to write out of that space. Do you think he died a fulfilled man? I think he certainly died fulfilled in what he had achieved. He certainly felt a little unfulfilled in terms of future. If there's one thing I've learned from Jared, it's that you have to grab the moments. It's pretty fast. For Hannah, it's about learning to live again without Jared. I mean, it's hard to communicate grief to a toddler, and so I think what we need to go with is joy. Joy in the things that Jared used to do with Elise; (SPEAKS BABY TALK) (LAUGHS) Can you catch them? ...anything to remind her of her dad. That's your daddy. Daddy. That's Dad's face. What is life like for you on your own now? Um, it's really lonely, and I think Jared was so larger than life. He would fill a room with his presence. And the room without his presence seems like a really quiet and lonely place. What do you see of Jared in Elise? Interesting. People look at her and say, 'Oh, she's the splitting image of him,' and I don't see that. (LAUGHS) But I do see this inquisitive little mind that just loves to learn and to find things out, because that was just how he was. Something she'll be able to discover for herself one day in the pages of a book. It is not light holiday reading,... (LAUGHS) but equally I think there's a lot of... there's a lot of love and there's a lot of hope in it. What do you want Elise to know about her dad? I want her to know that he was brave and strong and really intelligent, and really funny, and that he told the best kind of stories and that he would be here if he could. (SOBS) I want you to know that you are so loved. I love you, Elise. What a beautiful family. Jared's book, 'Message To My Girl' is available in stores from tomorrow, and if you'd like to see Creation Films' documentary on Jared, go to our Facebook page for details. Later in the show, Dawn French on 30 million minutes, and how much of that has been spent on parenting. The person in my life who is least impressed with anything I have done is Billie. She couldn't care less. Now she's in her 20s, what's your parenting style? Uh, warlike. Let's put it that way. Next, though, should your employer help you freeze your eggs? Meet the single women who're demanding the gift of time and the employers urging them on. I am looking for Mr Right, but just not right now. Do I want a new car or do I want a baby? If you take away hope, what do you have? CLOCK TICKS, BELL RINGS 4 Welcome back. Is this a fertility conversation you've had with yourself? 'I'll wait till I've found the right partner or right job, or maybe I should do it on my own.' 'I wonder if I should freeze my eggs?' If international signs are correct, more and more women are doing just that. And now some of the world's biggest companies like Apple and Facebook are offering financial incentives to female employees to freeze their eggs. But how appropriate is it? Should employers be getting involved in fertility decisions, and are women getting the full picture? PJ Madam reports. Check it out. (GASPS) Oooh, they're so cute. What did you name them? You'd think these women were gushing over their children, but that's a little too soon. They're marvelling at eggs; her frozen eggs. Technically, each have names, but my mom calls them her frozen grandbaby eggs. BOTH LAUGH I'm 39 and I have frozen nine eggs. I'm 44 and I have 10 eggs on ice. I'm 36 and I have decided to freeze my eggs. Three healthy women who were trying to control their biological clocks using the latest in technology, and some making this decision in style. I am looking for Mr Right, but not Mr Right right now. Nice to meet you too. 'I want it be in a medical setting. I don't want it to be in a bar.' And now in the US, big business is encouraging, even helping, career women to delay. How dare an employer get involved in a woman's reproductive life and her decision. Egg freezing. For many, it's the future of motherhood, and what you're about to witness may soon be commonplace in Australia. Women don't want to seem like baby crazy. Maybe on your Match.com profile you should have, like, 'Have you frozen your eggs or not?' If you take away hope, what do you have? CLOCK TICKS Los Angeles ` a city that thrives on making dreams come true. Appearing youthful is an obsession, making everything forever young, even a woman's fertility. Ohhhh, I wasn't ready for that. 'Men ` they can have babies whenever they want.' Now you're being aggressive. I always thought it was unfair. You know, why is it that just because we're women we have to be forced into this timeframe. On the surface, Allison Quiter has it all. She's fit, healthy, great job in digital marketing, but she's 36 and single ` a bad combination if you want to have a baby of your own. How long have you been single for? It's been about two years. < And that's long for you. Oh, it's long... Like the longest ever. Oh, wow. The video looks so good on the page. I don't want to have to be pigeonholed into a relationship with some guy just because of a biological clock. So I think that's why egg freezing is such a great option. It's a lonely road, but Allison's decided to freeze her eggs. Hi, Allison. How are you? > Hi. Fertility specialist Dr Vicken Sahakian has been making babies for nearly 30 years. You look much younger than 36. You know that. So... But it doesn't matter. Your ovaries are 36 years old. Your ovaries are always going to be your chronological age. Dr Sahakian tells her a golden number. At least 10 eggs are needed for a chance of a baby. 20 eggs would be even better. So, lay down, Allison. Come down towards me. So you have on this side, one, two, three,... And so it begins ` ...four, five, six... the guesswork of how many eggs Allison might produce once she undergoes what is known as hormone blasting. There is a good chance we can get somewhere between 15 to 20 eggs on you. OK? You cannot expect a better ultrasound result on an antral follicle count than what you just had. Great. I'm super excited. Allison's facing nearly two weeks of daily injections at home which will artificially stimulate her ovaries to release as many eggs as possible before they're retrieved in an operation. Her eggs are then frozen and stored. Did you ever think you would be in this position? Oh no, never. How much have you spent on this? A lot. More than I thought. It's going to cost her nearly $10,000 for one round of egg freezing. But it's like, 'Do I want a new car or do I want a baby?' I want a baby. CLOCK TICKS BELL RINGS I don't think they're being fully informed about the risks and the unknowns. Women's health advocate Miriam Zoll wrote 'Cracked Open' ` her true story of how she learnt the hard way that relying on science over Mother Nature doesn't always pay off. In the end, she adopted a baby boy. This is a highly controversial evolving industry that isn't going away, that needs to have external oversight, particularly in the United States where there's basic anarchy. HEAVY METAL MUSIC PEOPLE CHATTER This is family planning LA-style. My doctors have said that this is something that I need to explore. The time clock is not on my side any more. Welcome to an egg-freezing party called 'On Ice'. No time like the present. I just need to get on it and go for it and see what happens. Run by Great Possibilities, a company that signs up single, cashed-up women who can afford the $10,000-plus price tag to keep their eggs on ice, providing everything from the doctors to the drugs. APPLAUSE What this gives you is an opportunity to be a mom. And they're hoping to bring their business down under, because in Australia, every week at least one woman is freezing her eggs. ...to be a mom with your own biological children, and while it is not 100%, it is the best option that you have. You know, people say, 'What is wrong with offering people hope?' But you don't see chemotherapy companies holding cocktail parties in posh hotel lobbies. Why is the marketing tactic so extreme around egg freezing? Why are they framing it in a way that is making it sound better than it is? They're marketing hope, the egg business is, but they're also marketing the sense that these women can control the future. And, in fact, they can't. There is, of course, no guarantee. Dr Robert Boostanfar is in the egg-freezing business. At his busy clinic, one woman is freezing her eggs every day. If you're lulling your patient into a false sense of security that, you know, a small batch of eggs at 37 is going to be an insurance plan for a child, you've done a big disservice to your patients. But what could go wrong? What do women need to be aware of? I would say the one small risk if a patient is not properly dosed or monitored, is to be overstimulated. So ovarian hyperstimulation can occur, and the last time I've had a patient hospitalised for something like that was over five years ago. So we would say the benefits of this procedure greatly outweigh the risks. Egg freezing was once considered to be experimental. A slow freezing technique was used, and many of the eggs simply didn't survive the thawing process. But science got smarter. A new technique called vitrification or flash-freezing was introduced and that meant 90% of the eggs now survive. Around the same time, that experimental label was lifted and that's been a game changer for this billion-dollar industry. TECHNO MUSIC In Silicon Valley, women make up only 30% of the workforce. To retain the women they have and attract the ones that they want, Facebook and Apple are now offering a $20,000 benefit to female employees who want to freeze their eggs. Other companies hope to follow. So super-smart Silicon Valley companies, like Facebook and Apple, plus smart fertility science equals what kind of future exactly for female employees? We offer benefits for all life stages and really generous benefits. We just don't try to follow the market. We try to follow our employees. I think it's a fantastic idea. We at Virgin want to steal the idea. Please do. How dare an employer offer a woman the opportunity to delay her childbearing but not provide benefits and services to employees who want to have families when they are younger. It looks good from a public relations perspective ` the companies that are offering it. 'Oh, they're supporting women. They're empowering women.' But it's a fallacy and it's an illusion. So, you asked for the update on the number of clients that we have. This benefit has kick-started a controversial conversation about women's fertility,... Everybody that's currently cycling... ...and the more talk, the better for business for companies like Great Possibilities. She is, uh, the 40-year-old that was the poor responder. The women behind it and those On Ice parties are Shalene Petricek and Wendie Wilson-Miller. So it's not this big, glitzy, ritzy marketing ploy? No. (LAUGHS) It's really not. But this is a business. It is a business. Are you marketing to women's fears that idea that they'll never become a mum? Um,... I don't know that I would say it's playing to women's fears because it's a valid. The people that we're marketing to are at a critical stage in their fertility timeline, and so giving them knowledge and giving them information to allow them to make the best choice for their own future fertility, is not playing to fears. It's just giving them a chance to be empowered by their choices. CLOCK TICKS A woman's fertility is finite. From the moment she's born, that clock starts ticking. So at this little one's age, she's born with about a million eggs, and those eggs will age with her. By the time a young girl reaches puberty, at least half of those eggs have already died. Month after month, hundreds and hundreds more are lost, and when a woman is in her late 20s, her fertility is actually declining. By 35, it's not just the quantity but the quality of eggs left that's greatly diminishing, and by 40, the odds are against you. It's why egg freezing is the latest fertility trend, but it's expensive, risky and is no guarantee it will produce a baby. These young women who were signing up for egg freezing are potentially subjecting themselves to a very nasty rude awakening down the line if those eggs do not result in a live birth. Ahhhhhhhhh. When I was 30, I froze 12 eggs. Five or six other women there had also thought of the same thing. We already know Wendie Wilson-Miller. She's passionate about egg freezing because she's done it before and knows it works. I knew I wanted kids, and I started to feel panicked at 30, and so when a physician said, 'Well, maybe you should just consider freezing your eggs.' And he said, 'You know, it's the future. It's what people are going to start doing.' So I said, 'OK.' 'I'll give it a whirl.' So I froze them. Turns out Wendie didn't need those eggs after all. She gave birth to two boys, Finn and Bowie, the old-fashioned way. For me, it's the best thing in the entire world. It trumps absolutely everything. And as for Wendie's frozen eggs? Little Frances came from one of them. Wendie gave her eggs to her friend, Christine Hoffman, who battled cancer as a teenager and was left infertile. Every single day when I look at her, I'm just like, 'I can't believe I'm this lucky.' What do you tell her? I tell her that you need an egg to make a baby and Mommy didn't have one, so an angel made one and gave us one. There's no turning back the clock. Egg freezing is only going to get bigger and bigger. It has found a new market in single women who are demanding the gift of time. And in Australia it's catching on. In the US, it's predicted to become a $20-billion industry by the end of the decade. You are not invincible and Mother Nature is very very powerful. She's more powerful than science, so be careful how you choose, but choose wisely. Shalene, Allison and Jennifer are still looking for love, not just a sperm donor. When I first froze my eggs, I thought, 'You know, I'm not going to need them. 'There's no way I'm going to be a single mom on my own.' But now as time has gone on and things have worked out differently, I've really been thinking about that I would be OK with being a single mom. And so that's where I am today. And we started this company back in November... And Shalene who, at 44, has 10 eggs in the freezer. If I cannot make my own child, you know, through this entire process, and carry a child of my own genetics, I will absolutely adopt, and I will be a mother, so I know that I will be a mother someday. Are you OK with this not working out? I'm at peace with it, and I had to make peace with it, you know, because I didn't have this choice. Hello, Allison. Hi. How are you? Good. Come on in. And then there's 36-year-old Allison. From your first scan, how many eggs did he think he might be able to get? He said about 20, 22. And that's a lot. Yeah. It's a good amount. And from the second scan, where were you at? That was, like, about 11. (GASPS) Yeah. That's a big drop. It is. Yeah. It's disappointing. It's a relatively very quick process... Allison needs to produce a minimum of 10 eggs for a chance of having just one baby,... And then this is the ultrasound probe... ...which she is about to find out if that's happened. That's the needle. That's the needle. Oh my gosh. Not all of it goes in, obviously, only a small part of it. So, basically, we use the needle to go into the follicles and aspirate the eggs. You can see the needle going in. The follicle collapses. Here is about six or seven good, nice follicles. The others were small, so I won't be surprised if we don't get lots of eggs, but I told her already she's probably going to have to do this again. Allison's eggs are extracted in less than five minutes. You OK? I'm OK. Any pain? No. I feel great. It went very well. Very quick, and, um, 10 eggs. 10 eggs? I told you it was going to be 10 and you got 10. Perfect. I wish you had 20, but 10 is 10, so I'm happy about that. I think you should do it one more time if you want. Any time you want. What about doing it again? Do you think you'll go for another round? Not any time soon. I'm still thinking I can go the natural way, and, you know, for a couple of years. It's really a lot of money. Like, the process was fine. It's really just about the money, you know. I think I'll try the other way for now and just have this as my back-up. CLOCK TICKS, BABIES CRY So, what do you think? If a company wants to support a woman's choice by subsidising the egg-freezing procedure, is that OK? Or do you think it's a step too far and could put pressure on female employees? Next, the funny woman about some of the less funny moments of her life. Dawn French. When I come to tell a story about my life, how could I leave that out? It was such a massive part of what happened in our family and a big part of what we survived as a family. We went from four to three in a very devastating way. 5 Welcome back. We know her as the bubbly Vicar of Dibley and one half of the highly successful comic duo, French and Saunders. But as Dawn French reveals in her new stage show '30 Million Minutes', the length of time she reckons she's been alive, there's a deep sadness behind her larger-than-life smile. Open, honest and brave, Dawn French speaks to Jessica Mutch over a bag of Kiwi lollies. Mmmmm. Now, do you like these? I would like the centre of that to actually be chocolate. But someone's interfered with it and put pineapple, which I believe is fruit. Mm. It's not easy to keep a straight face when you're eating pineapple lumps with Dawn French. What if they were just called flavoured lumps? Would that be all right? The flavoured lumps. That's not a very good name. Something bosom-y happens to me when you say flavoured lumps. # French and Saunders! # She is, after all, one of Britain's best-loved comediennes. It's so wonderful for me to finally know that every atom in my body, that I am absolutely perfect. I'm almost unbelievably beautiful, aren't I? Are you? Yes, I am. Yes. LAUGHTER But first and foremost, she's a woman who's comfortable in her own skin, thanks to a conversation with her dad when she was just 13. I was, you know, a teenager in a time when hot pants, you know, little shorts, were the thing. And being very skinny and having no bosoms was the thing. And I was so not that. And, anyway, I was on my way to a party one night and I put... I had my hot pants on. And my dad stopped me and said, 'Come and sit down. We need to have a chat.' And I thought, 'Oh, I'm going to get told off or something.' But that wasn't it at all. My dad just told me that I looked absolutely beautiful, and that anybody'd be lucky to have me as a girlfriend, and that I deserved the best in the world. And I left feeling 10 foot tall, you know, and I didn't let any boys anywhere near me. So my dad managed to` < So he totally did his job. Protect me. Tick, tick, tick. You know, he did everything right. You know, when your dad gives you that kind of confidence, I think it really matters. Confidence that's lasted a lifetime ` 30 million minutes and counting. I am Dawn French, right. She explores that moment and more in her first solo stage performance. The dwarfish, fuchsia, jockey child. LAUGHTER But surprisingly, just like her life,... Boys are just revolting and horrid, aren't they, and, really, we should just throw stones at them. ...the show isn't a laugh a minute. When she was just 18, the father who had prepared her for life so well, took his own. When I come to telling a story about my life, how could I leave that out? It was such a massive part of what happened in our family, and a big part of what we survived as a family. We went from four to three in a very devastating way when I was only 18. So I could not possibly leave my dad out of it or what happened to him. Because you talk about your dad's death as being a centre point in your life. What did you mean by that at 18? For your dad to die in such a tragic way at that very moment, could've unhinged me, could've really derailed me. But, thank goodness, because of my family support and because of the kind of person I think that my dad helped make me into, I survived it. I started to understand that when someone deals with quite serious clinical depression, they're going to have moments when they don't survive it and moments when they do, and I thought, 'Yeah, actually, my dad wouldn't want me to crumple as a result of this, 'then two people would've lost their lives.' I need to go on and be twice as strong and live my life as a bit of a tribute to him. And so that's what I did. A devoted daughter and devoted mother to Billie, now 24, who Dawn adopted with former husband, comedian Lenny Henry. I gave her a skipping rope for Christmas when she was 9. That's the mum I am. She's not entitled to anything, and I wasn't entitled to anything, and the person in my life who is the least impressed with anything that I have ever done is Billie. She couldn't care less. Now that she's in her 20s, what's your parenting style? Uh, warlike. Let's put it that way. Ferocious. Yeah. I mean, thank God for love, actually, because there's quite a lot of time you don't like them that much. But if you really love them, and I really love that kid, everything else is gravy. Dawn French and Lenny Henry were divorced in 2010 after 25 years of marriage. How do you separate yourself from such a significant relationship? You do it with kindness and you do it with civility. That's what you do. We are friends, we co-parent for our daughter, but we have separate lives, and I genuinely feel that he is happy for me, and I am happy for him. So it's` it's OK. It's OK. She's now married to charity boss Mark Bignell. A lot has happened since Dawn made her name in this iconic TV series... # French and Saunders! # ...with her long-time friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunders. # Before it's earned, our money's all been spent. # I guess that's so. We don't have a pot, but at least I'm sure of all the things we got. I missed her enormously to begin with. It just felt really strange. # Babe! # And the director kept saying to me, 'Please stand in the middle of the stage. 'Why are you moving over there?' I said, 'Oh, cos there's another bird standing there normally.' So I was leaving space for her on the stage, which was odd. Aw. Yeah. But now... now that I have done the show and completely owned it, I would... I'd punch her if she came on the stage. < This is your stage now. You get confident in a different way. This is a different kind of show. Now, she's been to see it, oh, I think three times now. Oh wow. And she was just in tears when she came to see it, and she came and gave me a big hug, and she's like best friend/sister kind of, you know. She's nothing but loving. And then there's the much-loved Vicar of Dibley, who once had a bit of a girl crush on our very own Rachel Hunter. I really love those bras and knickers that you model. Oh, thank you. Yeah. You should tell them to make them in industrial sizes, please! Yeah. Yeah. Still, they weren't wasted. I use them for flossing. You've got 30 million minutes. We're very curious to know whether NZ makes one minute of that in your show. Any chance at all? < Just one minute. That's what we want. By the time I get to NZ, I think NZ will feature in the show, without a doubt. < Excellent, excellent. But what you should know about NZ is that after Cornwall, which is where I'm from and where I live, that is my most favourite place in the world. Really? Yeah. That's where we... we finished French and Saunders, in NZ. You know, we got our tattoos in NZ, and I feel like I'm amongst friends and that we can share something together, you know, that I can open up a bit. If you could look back and pick the best 10 minutes of your life, what would it be? Other than this? What's happening right now? Absolutely. I mean, obviously. Oh, probably... but those first 10 minutes in her presence, yeah, that was pretty unforgettable. Yeah. Dawn French is bringing her new show to NZ next March. Next, a sneak peek at our upcoming story on the wonderful and wacky world of Kiwi kinetic artist Joseph Herscher. JOVIAL MUSIC 5 Next week we're taking you into the world of Kiwi inventor and kinetic artist Joseph Herscher. His art form? Creating complicated machines to do the most simple tasks. From buttering toast to turning a page, Joseph's machines can fill a room and take months to build. So why does he do it? Well, next week, we'll take a journey inside the mind of a man who's captured millions of followers worldwide. (GULPS) I grew up in NZ. My parents are professional musicians, and my mother's a Kiwi but my father is from Brooklyn, actually. The first machine I made was the lolly machine in NZ-speak. It was a machine that I put my candy in a tube and it went into a box and stored it for me. I read the Lord of the Rings when I was, like, 10, and it was a big, heavy book to hold, so I had this machine that held the book up, that I could easily turn the pages and just lie there in peace, relax and look up and read it. So that was very practical. But all along, I was sort of spurred on by the entertainment value that it brought to my friends and family. So, all these madcap machines, whose fault is this? > Mm. Well, don't blame it on me. DIRECTOR: Roll camera. Yes! < Whoo! Fantastic! So, that's next week. And that is our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter, Sunday TVNZ. Thanks for joining this evening. Ka kite i a koe a tera wiki. Pomarie.