The Vicar of Dibley

The sets were great with the Vicars house built at the back with the village hall and other scenes being played in front clothes and to sides. The stage crew worked efficiently so as not to hold up the change of scenes (of which there were many).  Good use was made of the auditorium for some scenes. The script was a commissioned adaptation  by Joyce Branagh to use the original dialogue across a few episodes in order to tie up the storylines culminating in the Vicars wedding.

The costumes looked great and fitted each character perfectly. The difficulty with shows such as these is that they come with no stage script (just the TV shows scripts) and they are so well know that you cannot deviate from the characters too far. The society was lucky enough to use the same cast bar one from their previous trip to Dibley. This society and the Director did a fantastic job on the scripts with great characterisation by each player and good use of the spaces for each scene.

The cast were fabulous, really digging deep with each character and pulling it off.

The key character of Reverend Geraldine Grainger was brilliantly played by Justine Sutcliffe. Her dry delivery and comic timing was great and her interaction with the rest of the cast was beautifully crafted and felt very real.

Emily Rawlinson was fabulous as the not so bright Alice Horton. A great accent and delivery with the childlike quality required for this part.

Anthony Peter was great as David Horton and played the part with a less pompous attitude than in earlier episodes as he realises his love and warmth for the villagers he makes out he loathes. His son Hugo was nicely played by Matthew Parker with a nice simplicity to the character.

Dan Clay was very enigmatic as Harry, Geraldine’s love interest and played very well opposite Justine.

Andrew Rawlinson did a great job on Jim Trott, the No, No, No, Yes man and Frank Butterworth was an endearing Frank Pickle. Andy Fraser played Owen Newitt with a great accent and idiocy of nature and everyone of the supporting cast and ensemble worked their socks off to transport us to Dibley with the characters we all know and love.

This was a great evenings entertainment which raced by such was the consuming acting and storyline.

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