The cross I bore not to ridicule women priests, by Vicar Of Dibley Dawn
DAWN French says she put herself under huge pressure to honour female clergy in The Vicar Of Dibley.
Dawn portrayed Geraldine Granger from 1994 to 2007 and feared the comedy favourite could belittle the Church of England – and women vicars in particular.
So the 62-year-old says she insisted the character of Geraldine be popular, successful and beloved.
French confessed: “Oddly, I did feel a sense of responsibility.
“But I did feel that we ought to deliver a very funny sitcom because otherwise it would be maligning the Church at a very crucial time and I did not want to do that.
Censors
“I did not want to alienate anything. And I also felt the responsibility that there was a lot of hostility towards women vicars.
“I felt the responsibility to make sure she was a winning character, so we could normalise this situation.”
She also wanted Geraldine to blend with the odd characters in the show, written by Richard Curtis.
She said: “I was worried at the beginning because every other character that Richard was writing in this ensemble piece, I could see the jokes.
“I could absolutely see why they were funny – barking mad, bonkers, pompous or whatever – what good comedy characters are made of.
“And then there was this person at the centre who was essentially decent and hardworking.
“And I did say to Richard, she definitely needs flaws and she needs to be human. He completely wrote that.”
Dawn recently told the BBC she got away with dishing up the raunchiest and most controversial comedy of her career in Dibley, in which her close pal in the series was dizzy blonde Alice Tinker, played by the late Emma Chambers.
The star reckons that BBC censors, lawyers and audiences often overlooked the edgy comedy as they felt it was a gentle Curtis and Beeb show.
She said: “In my life some of the edgiest stuff I have ever said or witnessed is in that sitcom.”
In French And Saunders, she said, “we were forever having lawyers and censors checking us; whereas not so many people checked Dibley because it appeared to be so innocent.”