After Vicar Pottle died mid-sermon in the tiny, tight-knit Oxfordshire village of Dibley, the townspeople expected another old man to take his place at St. Barnabas Church. What they got was Reverend Geraldine Granger (played by Dawn French), a bracingly modern and boisterous woman who, despite causing initial upset with her clashing personality, soon came to be embraced by the eccentric yet conservative community. Describing herself as a “babe with a bob and a magnificent bosom”, Geraldine is a liberal and humorous overweight woman who stashes chocolate everywhere in her home (including in a hollowed-out bible) and delights in off-color jokes. Emma Chambers (Hugh Grant’s googly-eyed sister in Notting Hill) played Geraldine’s ditzy but well-meaning friend and church verger, Alice Tinker-Horton. Many plots revolve around these two main characters, while also featuring a host of townspeople who interact with Geraldine. These included Geraldine’s main opposition, David Horton (Gary Waldhorn), chairman of the parish council, his dim but kind son, Hugo Horton (James Fleet), parish councilmember Jim Trott (Trevor Peacock), and the foul-mouthed, sheep-obsessed farmer, Owen Newitt (Roger Lloyd-Pack). It also featured Liz Smith as parish councilmember and maker of horrendous food, Letitia Cropley, and Simon McBurney as Cecil the choirmaster. The like-minded Alice and Hugo would go on to marry and have 10 children. In September 2006, a new character, accountant Harry Kennedy (Richard Armitage) was introduced. He and Geraldine would marry in the show’s final episode. The Vicar of Dibley was created by Richard Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill, Love, Actually, and Blackadder. First airing in 1994, the show went on to run for three seasons, four Christmas specials, and two Comic Relief special, running until 2007. Johnny Depp played himself in 1999, and Kylie Minogue, Sean Bean, Rachel Hunter, and Duchess of York, Sarah Furguson, also appeared on the show. It 2004, it placed third on the BBC’s Britain’s Best Sitcom poll. The show was going to be adapted for U.S. TV in 2007, thanks to Frasier stars Peri Gilpin (Roz) and Jane Leeves (Daphne), and was to star Kirstie Alley as a former wild child who returned to her hometown to become its first female minister but the show was not picked up.
