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As a result of the success of 'French & Saunders', Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French briefly parted company to focus on shows of their own. Saunders' show was the dreadful ( though undeniably popular ) 'Absolutely Fabulous' ( which in fact spun off from 'French & Saunders' ) whilst Dawn French donned a dog collar for 'The Vicar Of Dibley', a pleasingly gentle show written by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew Archer ( and others ) which unlike 'Father Ted' after it, poked gentle fun at the church rather than savage attacks.
French plays Geraldine Granger, a bubbly, boisterous vicar with a fondness for chocolate who, following the death of the previous curate, is sent out to Dibley, a small village which, despite being peopled by oddballs, is rather picturesque. The locals include verger Alice Tinker who judging by her dippy nature must have been dropped on her head as a baby, boring church secretary Frank Pickle, starchy councillor David Horton ( who initially despises Geraldine ) and his well meaning but dim witted son Hugo, parish council member Jim Trott who has an unfortunate habit of prefacing each sentence with ''no,no,no,no,no,yes!'', foul mouthed farmer Owen Newitt and church organist Letitia Cropley whose cookery skills make Dirty Dicky Dandruff from 'Scotch & Wry' look like Gordon Ramsay.
The comedy arises from Geraldine and the congregation's attempts to set up fetes and events at the village, only for something to overshadow the success of their plans. Alice's dim-wittedness caused quite a bit of humour ( brought to life by the excellent performance of the gorgeous Emma Chambers ) particularly when she spoke of how her budgie kept on dying and coming back to life. James Fleet and Gary Waldhorn hammed it up wonderfully well as the Horton Snr and Jnr. The underrated Liz Smith was hilarious as the unable to cook Letitia and it was a pity she was killed off after the first series. John Bluthal was also amusing as the dour Frank. Stealing the show however were the late Roger Lloyd Pack and Trevor Peacock as Owen and Jim. Happy to take part in guest roles were Clive Mantle, Kylie Minogue, Johnny Depp and, surprisingly, Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess Of York.
Each episode would conclude with a post credits sequence in which Geraldine would tell Alice a joke, with Alice either not understanding it or over-analysing the punchline, much to Geraldine's irritation. Alice and Hugo later got married and ( if you can believe it ) started a family.
'The Vicar Of Dibley' was not in my opinion a spectacularly brilliant show but it was enjoyable and each half-hour had a very generous sprinkling of laughs throughout, and Dawn French looked damn sexy in the dog collar to boot!
UPDATE: Emma Chambers sadly died of a heart attack on 21 February 2018. R.I.P Emma, a beautiful woman and a very underrated actress.
score 8/10
RaspberryLucozade 27 October 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3569967/ |
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1-11-2020 18:11:10