The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
WHAT TO WATCH THE VICAR OF DIBLEY IN LOCKDOWN
BBC One, 8.50pm
Following a brief skit on The Big Night In, Dawn French’s “buxom vicarette” Geraldine Granger returns for three more lockdown shorts conjuring the same blend of chaste innocence and utter filth, all delivered with a straight face and a dog collar, and written once again by Richard Curtis. A combination of Zoom sermons to parishioners and familiar faces (in this case James Fleet’s nice-but-dull Hugo Horton), the set-up allows for careful negotiation of off-screen sadness (Owen Newitt and Alice Tinker, as played by the late
Roger Lloyd-Pack and Emma Chambers, are acknowledged but not seen), although Geraldine’s
husband Harry (Richard Armitage) is so far conspicuous by his absence.
Amid the hair disasters and jokes about chocolate, the highlight comes with an exchange between Geraldine and some local primary school children over the relative merits of Dynamo and Jesus Christ. For the most part, the gags are as middling and laboriously telegraphed as ever – those bewildered by the series’s enormous success will remain unconvinced – but the underlying message of kindness just about skirts Curtis’s customary sentimentality, while French throws herself into it with her usual gusto. Gabriel Tate
Navy’s deadliest jet fighter, the Super Hornet. It includes some genuinely exciting cockpit footage.
CORONATION STREET: 60 UNFORGETTABLE YEARS ITV, 8.30pm
Remember Emily Perkins? She only graced the cobbles of Weatherfield for eight episodes back in 1973, but the actress who played her, one Joanna Lumley, narrates this celebration. Expect anecdotes from the cast including William Roache, Michelle Keegan and Julie Hesmondhalgh.