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The sleepy English village of Dibley gets shaken up when their new vicar turns out to be a woman--and not just any woman, but Geraldine Granger, played by Dawn French of the peerless comedy duo French & Saunders. With wit and warmth, Gerry swiftly trumped her parishioner's chauvinism and turned British sitcom The Vicar of Dibley into a cult favorite. Over the course of 16 episodes and specials, Gerry grappled with everything from a broken church window to getting smeared in the tabloids, from the demise of the Easter Bunny to the possible destruction of the village. While The Vicar of Dibley routinely trafficked in the absurd--pop star Kylie Minogue happens to drop by, just when she's most needed--at its best, the show found its greatest absurdity (and its greatest humor) in the everyday life of an English village and the everyday quirks of its daffy inhabitants. While the brilliant French was unquestionably the axis on which the show happily spun, much of its success was due to the clever writing (Vicar was created by Richard Curtis, who wrote the screenplays for Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually) and a rock-solid comic ensemble, including Emma Chambers as Gerry's dim-bulb assistant Alice; Gary Waldhorn as the pompous landowner David Horton; James Fleet as his none-too-bright son Hugo; and Roger Lloyd-Pack, Trevor Peacock, Roger Bluthal, and Liz Smith as maddeningly eccentric villagers. It's no wonder the show has inspired devoted fans on both sides of the Atlantic; from the clever stories to the joke that follows the credits of every episode, The Vicar of Dibley is sheer delight. --Bret Fetzer
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