TV Review – ‘The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Let’s talk about ‘The Vicar of Dibley’! It’s a BBC sitcom starring Dawn French as Geraldine Granger, who becomes a vicar in the small village of Dibley. This is a comedy series that’s mostly seen every year, whether it’s at Christmas time or any other time. I think people prefer to see it over Christmas.

My parents and I tend to enjoy ‘The Christmas Lunch Incident’ Christmas Special every year and sometimes the nativity-filled ‘Winter’ Special from 1999. The comedy can be a bit rude at times with it being penned by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, but it’s still a pretty enjoyable sitcom. 😀

Recently, we’ve had a series of three 10 minute mini-episodes shown in December called ‘The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown’. 2020 hasn’t been a kind year to us – please keep safe, so it’s been nice to see these ‘Vicar of Dibley’ mini-episodes, depicting what Geraldine has been doing in the year 2020.

As I said, there are three episodes of ‘The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown’ to enjoy. There’s also a compilation of the three episodes to be seen on BBC iPlayer. If I were you, I’d watch the compilation edition since that contains some unseen footage that’s not shown in the three episodes themselves.

In the first instalment of ‘The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown’, Geraldine conducts her online sermons from home including in the months of April, May and June. I found it funny when Geraldine had to explain the difference between ‘miles’ and ‘metres’ when it came to social distancing to Jim Trott. 😀

Geraldine soon got a lockdown haircut from Owen who’s more used to trimming animal coats. Thank goodness I had my haircut from the hairdressers later on in the year. 😀 There’s also a Sunday School Zoom Meeting that turns out to be more trouble and Geraldine catches up with Hugo Horton.

Yes, James Fleet reprises his role as Hugo in the ‘Lockdown’ series of mini-episodes. A shame not everyone could reprise their roles for the ‘Lockdown’ series, but more on that in a bit. In the second instalment of the Vicar of Dibley’s ‘Lockdown’, we’ve online sermons in July, August and September.

Geraldine gets to experience the joy of going outside again, although it’s Owen who films her on the camera. Why it wasn’t her husband I don’t know, since she’s still married to him. How come Richard Armitage wasn’t in on this? Mind you, he’s been doing Rassilon for the ‘Gallifrey’ Big Finish audios. 🙂

I like how Geraldine makes mention of the school exams fiasco that happened this year as well as the Black Lives Matter movement. Geraldine also pays tribute to her wonderful verger Alice (played by Emma Chambers), who sadly died three years ago. So sad to see that in the ‘Lockdown’ special! 😦

In the third instalment, the online sermons take place in October, November and December. Geraldine holds a face mask design competition which was amusing to watch. Hugo also holds a sermon in Geraldine’s absence in November and Geraldine reads one nativity poem for Christmas. 😐

In the compilation edition, Geraldine tries to share two jokes with Hugo Horton who clearly doesn’t get them. I found it funny how that was played out in the compilation edition, especially as Hugo was married to Alice who didn’t get Geraldine’s jokes. I do wish it was in the original ‘Episode Three’.

I like how the ‘Lockdown’ special was dedicated to the loving memory of Liz Smith (who played Letitia Cropley), John Bluthal (who played Frank Pickle), Emma Chambers (who played Alice) and Roger Lloyd-Pack (who played Owen Newitt) as all four have previously passed away, which is sad. 😦

‘The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown’ specials were enjoyable and touching to watch. They’re a good set of mini-episodes that help us to reflect on what has been a tough year. I highly recommend checking out the compilation edition on BBC iPlayer and Dawn French is on top form as Geraldine Grainger. 😀

Will I check out ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ in full-detailed reviews sometime soon? You’ll have to wait and see! 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂