A Vicar of Dibley Christmas – The Second Coming

It’s never easy directing – or acting in – a play based on a television series, especially when the characters are so well-known and quirky, and the play requires two sets used alternatively scene after scene! It works in film, but it’s darn hard in live theatre, especially when one character is required to move between scenes constantly!

Director Rhonda Hancock admits the “staging was not without difficulties” siting multiple costume changes denoting the passage of time as an example, but not mentioning how quickly some of those changes needed to be made to keep the pace required in a comedy such as this. The Vicar (Nicole Madden) is to be congratulated on the number of jumpers and wraps she dons, mostly in half light on her way from the Vicarage and the Parish Hall!

The set, designed by Mark Prophet, followed the idea used by many old sit coms. Two rooms, side by side, with a communicating door. Both rooms, decorated by the director, captured time and place authentically and still allowed the cast of ten to interact in some ‘busy’ parish council meetings. 

In this second play based on the British comedy, the Vicar produces a local radio program, directs a nativity play, and Alice and Hugo expect a happy event. Alice is predictably naive, the Vicar sarcastically dry and the men of the parish council much the same as portrayed in the series, their oddities imitated effectively … with a few surprises.

Nicole Madden is not new to the role of the Vicar, having played the character in HLT’s 2023 production of Gower and Carpenter’s original adaptation. Madden gets the sardonic tone and dry wit of the Vicar well, using quick pauses and quizzical looks to accentuate comic moments.

Holly-Leigh Prophet is a very funny Alice. She captures the girlish simplicity of the character in naïve looks, guileless reactions and quick, childish claps and skips and twirls. It would be easy to make this character over-the-top, but Prophet contains her carefully.

Matthew Doherty plays her husband Hugo, not quite as naïve as his wife, but equally unsophisticated. Both work well together as the newly wedded couple coping with the scorn and disparagement of Hugo’s father, David, Chairman of the Parish Council, played by Christopher Pali.

The other men of the Parish Council are played by Ken Fletcher, Mark Prophet and Elliott Prophet. Fletcher is Frank Pickle (who gives away a personal secret on the radio); Mark Prophet is the very lewd Jim Trott, and Elliott Prophet the busy farmer Owen Newitt.

Beverley Mooney plays Letitia Cropley, who in this adaptation concentrates on her knitting but never misses a thing. Unfortunately Mooney was ill on opening night and her place was taken by Rebecca Fletcher, who, after only one rehearsal, was very funny in a role that depends on facial expressions, gestures, movement and timing rather than dialogue.

Because of the writing, which is filmic rather than theatrical, this is a play that requires much planning and rehearsal. Hancock and her cast have done a good job to make the many scene changes as fast as possible while still sustaining the action and the comedy … specially in the last riotous scene.

Carol Wimmer