The Vicar of Dibley
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| The Vicar of Dibley | |
|---|---|
 The Vicar of Dibley Opening titles |
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| Genre | Sitcom |
| Creator(s) | Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer |
| Starring | Dawn French Gary Waldhorn James Fleet John Bluthal Liz Smith Trevor Peacock Roger Lloyd Pack Emma Chambers |
| Country of origin |  United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 20 + 4 shorts (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 9x30mins, 7x40mins, 1x45mins, 3x55mins, 2x60mins |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC |
| Original run | 10 November 1994 – 16 March 2007 |
| Links | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. The Vicar of Dibley aired from 1994 to 2007. In 2004, it came third in Britain's Best Sitcom.
The Vicar of Dibley is set in a fictional small Oxfordshire village called Dibley, which is assigned a female vicar following the 1994 changes in the Church of England that permitted the ordination of women. The main character was inspired by Joy Carroll, one of the first female vicars[1].
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- Dawn French - The Rev. Geraldine Kennedy (née Granger)
- Gary Waldhorn - Councillor David Horton
- James Fleet - Hugo Horton
- Emma Chambers - Alice Horton (née Tinker)
- Roger Lloyd Pack - Owen Newitt
- John Bluthal - Frank Pickle
- Trevor Peacock - Jim Trott
- Liz Smith - Letitia Cropley (series 1 to Easter 1996 special)
- Simon McBurney - Cecil (series 1 to 2004 Christmas special)
- Patricia Kane - Doris Trott (series 1)
- Richard Armitage - Harry Kennedy (2006/07 Christmas specials)
[edit] Characters
[edit] Geraldine Granger
Geraldine Granger (born 14 November 1964) is the female vicar, self-described as a bon-vivante and a large, liberal woman who enjoys nothing more than a good laugh, much to the consternation of one David Horton. Her full name was once given as Boadicea Geraldine Granger and later as Geraldine Julie Andrews Dick Van Dyke Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Chim Chiminey Chim Chiminey Chim Chim Cher-ee Granger, the latter due to her mother's favourite book being Mary Poppins and the fact that the film was released the year of Geraldine's birth. But despite her fun-loving and sometimes outrageous behaviour, she is deeply caring and does her best to help those in her parish in any way she can. She is well aware of her overweight but seems to take a relatively laissez-faire towards it. A self-confessed chocoholic, she often will go on a diet only to break it within a few minutes by eating one of the innumerable chocolate bars that she has hidden throughout her house (even in hollowed-out Bibles). On one occasion, she gives up chocolate for Lent and nearly goes mad.
Her unusual first name is revealed late in the series, much to David Horton's amusement, though this seems to be contradicted in the final episode, which may be an example of a retcon. In 2006, she received a proposal from accountant Harry Jasper Kennedy and accepted by running around the village, screaming. In the final episode she marries him in a rather bizarre wedding, dressed in her pyjamas since her wedding dress has been accidentally ruined by Owen Newitt.
[edit] David Horton
Councillor David Matthew Horton MBE, chairman of the Parish Council, gentleman farmer, pillar of the community and local councillor, and main opponent of the female vicar. He is rigid, old-fashioned, efficient, callous and punctual and has never missed a council meeting, In fact, in one episode Jim and Owen reminisce about when David's wife went into labour with Hugo, and David held the meeting in the maternity ward. In later episodes of the series, Horton comes to fall for the Vicar and even proposes to her (she accepts his proposal but later decides to back out of it). He is initially a Conservative, but defects to the Labour Party in 2000 as part of his attempt to persuade Geraldine to marry him. Whether he switches his party allegiance back after she refuses him is unknown. He is a multi-millionaire.
[edit] Alice Horton
Alice Springs Horton (nee Tinker) is verger at the church, blonde and ditzy. Alice is the only main character who does not sit on the Parish Council. She is the product of a one-night stand between her mad mother (who in the last two episodes was said to be in a mental home), and the cousin of David Horton's father. She and Hugo are fond of each other and the vicar plays Cupid successfully in one episode. They eventually marry and have 10 children - the eldest, daughter Geraldine, was born on December 24, 1999, in the middle of the village Nativity play (in which her parents were playing Mary and Joseph). Alice never understands the jokes that Geraldine tells her, until the final episode when Harry Kennedy explains the grammar involved and she understands it. Alice believes in the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and the tooth fairy. After reading The Da Vinci Code she believes herself to be descended from Jesus.
[edit] Hugo Horton
Hugo Horton is David's somewhat dim-witted son. He served as his father's campaign manager at the October 1994 district council election, but inadvertently wound up going door to door with David's Labour opponent, delivering adverts and making introductions for him. Hugo and Alice Tinker are always shown to have feelings for each other, but they do not get together as a couple until Geraldine plays Cupid in "Engagement".
[edit] Frank Pickle
Frank Pickle is the likeable, but boring and pedantic secretary to the Parish Council. He is so boring that nobody wants to listen to him — even when he wants to discuss something exciting (to his own mind) such as the time he went down to the pub "and they'd completely run out of crisps" or "the time when the milkman was 47 minutes late". Due to his long boring speech five people, including his parents, have died. He decided to confess, on radio, to the village about his homosexuality (after over 40 years of staying in the closet), but apart from Geraldine, who was with Frank at the time, none of the villagers listened to his confession. Frank also once admitted to fancying Margaret Beckett. He defines his ideal man as a 25 year old South American with an interest in, inter alia, Oxfordshire council procedures.
[edit] Jim Trott
Jim Trott is a Parish Council member, who has an idiosyncratic way of saying "no no no no no..." before almost everything he says, most of all "yes". This stuttering once led him to lose on Deal or No Deal. His wife Doris does the opposite, saying "yes yes yes yes yes ...". Jim was a good dancer, though a long-winded singer. Despite his marriage, he still has no qualms about joining Owen in flirting with the Vicar, frequently commenting on her "lovely arse". He is also openly promiscuous with a penchant for Oriental women. In the final episode, he proposed to the vicar, with both of them apparently forgetting that he was already married (unless Doris had died, or they had divorced, since her last appearance in the show, in 1994, or her last mention in the show, in 1999).
[edit] Owen Newitt
Owen Newitt is the local farmer and a Parish Council member, with a very earthy manner of speaking. He was the first to support the new Vicar's appointment, saying that a woman wouldn't be a bad thing since the previous vicar was "a regular old woman anyway". His signature running gag was that he was chronically late for the Parish Council meetings, and had humorously legitimate, if graphic, reasons for his delays. He proposed to the vicar in "Engagement". She rejected him, but he was not upset, having found she was a drinker. Despite this, he frequently makes several crude attempts to flirt with her, though they are all comically misguided. Owen spent every Christmas alone from his uncle's death in 1971 until Geraldine joined him for Christmas dinner in 1996 (one of many such invitations she accepted that year).
[edit] Letitia Cropley
Letitia "Letty" Cropley was a Parish Council member. Geraldine once referred to her as "The Queen of Cordon Bleugh" and David Horton called her "The Dibley Poisoner". She was the creator of such revolting 'delicacies' as; "Bread and butter pudding surprise" (a recipe for which she was breeding snails), marmite cakes (which she served for Frank's birthday), Chocolate mixed with cod roe, Parsnip Brownies and Chocolate spread sandwiches (with a hint of taramosalata). Letitia only appeared in the first series and the special "The Easter Bunny", in which the character died. Her dying request to Geraldine was that she take over from her as the Easter Bunny, taking chocolate eggs around the village each Easter. Alas it was subsequently discovered that Letitia had made the same request of every member of the parish council.
[edit] Episodes
The Vicar of Dibley first aired on 10 November 1994. After 18 episodes and 3 short specials, two 60-minute episodes were filmed in September 2006, and introduced a new character, Harry Kennedy, whom Geraldine marries. The first episode was on Christmas Day 2006, the second was on New Year's Day 2007. The Christmas Day episode was watched by 11.4 million, more than any other programme on that day [2] while the New Year's Day episode was watched by 12.3 million people [3]. However, days later it was announced that a short special would be shown for Comic Relief and this, the last ever episode, was aired on 16 March 2007. [4]
Following the opening credits of each episode, there is usually a humorous depiction, eg. a woman knitting straight off the sheep. At the end of each episode, following the closing credits, Geraldine tells a joke to Alice — most of the time, the joke is rather off-colour. Alice usually doesn't get the joke, but instead tries to interpret it literally and then explains to Geraldine why the premise is implausible. In the very first episode, Alice actually does get the joke and bursts into hysterical laughter which lasts long after the joke has outstayed its welcome. In the episode Love and Marriage, David is told the joke and understands it straight away. In the 2005 episode Happy New Year, this joke was told at the beginning as the end of the episode focused on the Make Poverty History campaign. In the final episode, the joke is explained to Alice by Harry, in an ironically complicated manner which the character's intelligence would suggest an inability to understand, allowing her to get the punchline for the first time.
[edit] Location
While The Vicar of Dibley is set in Oxfordshire, the village scenes are filmed in Turville in Buckinghamshire, where Midsomer Murders, Goodnight Mister Tom and Marple have also been filmed. The opening titles were filmed in and around South Buckinghamshire, although the aerial tracking shot shows M40 traffic approaching Oxfordshire through the Chilterns cutting at Stokenchurch Gap.
[edit] Theme music
The theme music was composed by Howard Goodall to Psalm 23, and was performed by The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. The conductor was Stephen Darlington. It has been released as a charity single with proceeds to Comic Relief. It also appears on Goodall's CD Choral Works, which also includes his theme for another popular sitcom, Mr. Bean.
[edit] Critical reaction
The show has been both commended and critised for raising the issue of women priests. It has also been criticised for taking to extremes the worst stereotypes of rural communities and for showing people living in rural communities as being less intelligent.[citation needed] Initially, some viewers found Geraldine's light-hearted approach to her vocation to be bordering on blasphemous.[citation needed] But while certainly bawdy, her theology is quite orthodox, shown by her literal interpretation of the biblical depiction of miracles.
[edit] DVD releases
The Vicar of Dibley was released in DVD in Region 2 (UK) from 2001. In 2002, a DVD entitled The Best of The Vicar of Dibley was released featuring a 90 minute film of Dawn French talking to the producer Jon Plowman with clips from the series. A 2002 documentary narrated by Jo Brand entitled The Real Vicars of Dibley was also on the DVD. In 2005, the a boxset of the "complete collection" was released. This included all the then aired episodes and shorts except the 1997 BallyKissDibley Comic Relief short. In Australia (Region 4), all episodes, except the 2006/07 Christmas specials, the 1996 Easter Special and the 1997 BallyKissDibley short, were released on DVD under the name "The Vicar of Dibley: Divine Collection". Also in Australia all the series have been released separately. The Series 2 DVD includes the Easter Special and the BallyKissDibley short as part of the special features on the DVD.
[edit] US version
On 6 February 2007, FOX announced plans to adapt The Vicar of Dibley into an American sitcom, titled The Minister Of Divine. The series will star Kirstie Alley as a former "Wild Child" who returns to her hometown as its first female minister. If the series is picked up by Fox, it will be placed on the network's Fall 2007-2008 television season.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ Joy Carroll (September 2002). Beneath the Cassock: The Real-life Vicar of Dibley. HarperCollins. ISBN 0007122071.
- ^ "Vicar of Dibley tops Christmas TV", BBC, 26 December 2006.
- ^ "Dibley's farewell is ratings hit", BBC, 2 January 2007.
- ^ "Vicar of Dibley to be resurrected", BBC, 3 January 2007.
- ^ From Zap2it.com (02-06-07)
[edit] External links
