RIP, Emma We farewell the darling of Dibley
The comedy queen’ s untimely curtain call
When hit series
The Vicar of Dibley first screened back in 1994, it was the support role of Alice Tinker, played by Emma Chambers, that stole the show.
The nice but dim character with the big eyes and warm smile was loved and laughed at in equal measure as she stumbled through life as St Barnabas church verger.
It’s perhaps no surprise that when severe allergy sufferer Emma died last week, aged 53, after a suspected heart attack, the tributes flowed.
Her co-star Dawn French, who played Geraldine Granger in the show, described her as a “unique and beautiful spark”. The pair’s off-screen friendship was built firmly from 13 years of shared scenes, including those end-of-show jokes that Alice could never quite get.
Her Notting Hill co-star Hugh Grant explained how she “was a hilarious and very warm person and, of course, a brilliant actress”.
But it was the creator of Dibley, Wellington-born Richard Curtis, whose tribute touched on the professionalism behind her playing-dumb act.
“She really was a great, great comedy performer and a very fine actress. And a tender, sweet, funny, unusual, loving human being,” he wrote. “I particularly remember those jokes at the end of each episode. They were always done right at the end of the recording – with no time left – and were big feats of complicated remembering, and she was always completely accurate, completely innocent, completely hilarious.”
Emma began her career in theatre, clocking up 10 years before making her telly debut in the 1998 TV adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel The Rainbow.
But it was her role of Alice, which she portrayed between 1994 and 2007, that transformed her into a household name. In 1998, she won the British Comedy Award for Best TV Actress for her performance. After her 1999 part in
Notting Hill, playing Hugh Grant’s eccentric sister Honey Thacker, she became even more well-known, but she always kept her off-screen life private. Since news of her death, her husband of 27 years, Ian Dunn, noted for his roles in The Bill and Coronation
Street, is yet to be seen or release a statement.
Emma had spoken of her battle with allergies. Just touching a cat or dog could land her in hospital, needing steroid injections. Once, a cat turned up in her dressing room and, she said, “I was itching and wheezy. My voice was husky. The next day, I looked horrendous.”