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Vicar of Dibley
Sundays at 9pm & 9:30pm,
repeats Tuesdays 10pm & 10:30pm
View list of upcoming episodes
In 1994, the Church of England began ordaining women. Within the year, the BBC leveraged the historic shift into laughs with The Vicar of Dibley starring Dawn French, doyenne of British comedy, as the bodacious, curvaceous, and vivacious vicar who turns the village of Dibley, particularly its parish council, upside down. French's role of Geraldine Granger was created for her by screenwriter Richard Curtis, the wit behind the films "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Notting Hill", "Love Actually" and the series Mr. Bean and Blackadder. "The Vicar of Dibley" ran until 2007, including Christmas specials. We know that Geraldine loves chocolate — she even hides it in hollowed out Bibles — but one finds oneself dreaming of just how fun a martini lunch with her would be. (Or is she more of a cosmo kind of girl?)
The BBC's comedy site site has a nice synopsis of the series, and at Wikipedia's entry, you'll find descriptions of each character.
What else have cast members done? Find out with the Internet Movie Database:
- For Dawn French, the better question might be: What hasn't she done? Simultaneous to working on The Vicar of Dibley, French worked with her comedic partner, Jennifer Saunders, on a comedy skit show called French and Saunders which ran from 1987 to 2005. She also wrote 37 episodes of Absolutely Fabulous, voiced Mrs. Beaver in "The Chronicles of Narnia", and played the Fat Lady in the Painting in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban".
- Gary Waldorn (the rigid David Horton and lead objector to Geraldine) has been on several episodes of French and Saunders and Lovejoy.
- Emma Chambers (ditzy Alice Horton nee Tinker) has had numerous television roles and played Honey in the film "Notting Hill".
- James Fleet(Hugo Horton) has had many television roles and been in the films "A Cock and Bull Story and "Charlotte Gray" and "The Phantom of the Opera."
- Roger Lloyd-Pack (pig pen Owen Newitt) has played Doctor Who villain John Lumic and Barty Crouch in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." He's also been in episodes of Mr. Bean and Lovejoy as well as in the 1989 film "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover."
- Trevor Peacock (promiscuous, stuttering Jim Trott) has been in Waking the Dead. Over his nearly fifty-year career in television, he has also been a writer.
- John Bluthal (ruthlessly boring Frank Pickle) has been in Lovejoy. >
- Clive Swift (who puts both the long and the suffering in "long-suffering") has been on Doctor Who repeatedly and played Sir Hector in the 1981 film "Exalibur" and Major Calendar in the 1984 film "A Passage to India." In addition to countless television roles, he's played a host of characters from Shakespeare, like Friar Lawrence in "Romeo and Juliet" and Brabantio in "Othello."
- Delightfully jowly Judy Cornwall (eternally oblivious and eternally sexually hopeful Daisy) has played in television and big screen adaptations of many classics from British literature: Nellie in "Wuthering Heights" (1970), Rosie Gann in "Cakes and Ale (1974), Bessy Tulliver in "The Mill on the Floss" (1978), Mrs. Reed in "Jane Eyre" (1983), Mrs. Musgrove in "Persuasion" (1995), and Peggoty in "David Copperfield" (2000).
- Geoffrey Hughes (furry, paunchy, and presumably odiferous Onslow) has had an extensive stage career and played Eddie Yeats in the long-running drama Coronation Street.
- Mary Millar (Rose) was known primarily as a stage actress and was in the original cast of "The Phantom of the Opera" as ballet mistress Madame Giry. Millar died of ovarian cancer in 1998.
- Josephine Tewson and David Griffin (addled neighbor Elizabeth Warden and her brother, Emmett, respectively) have both had long careers in British television. Tewson has had a repeating role in Last of the Summer Wine as Miss Davenport.