The Players Theatre Company
present
The Vicar of Dibley
Dixon Studio, The Palace Theatre, Westcliff
19th - 23rd May 2015

This production of The Vicar of Dibley marks The Players Theatre Company’s first venture into the world of non-musical theatre, although director, David Breen, has had lots of experience producing some good dramas over the last ten years with both his own company, Threelance Theatre Co and also with other amateur groups in the area.

The Vicar of Dibley, written by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer was a hugely successful comedy starring the enormously popular comedienne, Dawn French, as the chocolate loving lady vicar who gradually ingratiates herself into the hearts of the Dibley Parish and in particular, its council members, with her wit and charm.  

There seems to be a trend for transitioning popular tv shows to stage; Fawlty Towers, Allo Allo, Blackadder and Are You Being Served, to name but a few.  It’s not surprising that amateur groups are taking on these plays because, ultimately, they attain what most groups want and need - to put bums on seats.  You are always going to be on to an audience winner with this type of show but for it to be successful there has to be one quite important criteria - audiences need to recognise the characters that they have become familiar with from the comfort of their sofas.  Audiences want to see the characters they have grown to love on their tv screens come alive on the stage.  For an actor, this needs not only a good level of performance skills but also the ability to be able to impersonate the character they are playing.  If you can’t pull that off then audiences will be disappointed. 

And so, the casting of this type of play is crucial to the believability factor for an audience and I think that in most cases, this was done really well by The Players Theatre Company.  In particular, Nick Poth as Jim “no, no, no,….yes” Trott, who certainly gave the audience a lot of laughs and his characterisation was perfection.  Likewise, with Craig Phoenix as Owen Newitt who completely nailed the voice and idiosyncrasies of this monosyllabic sex starved farmer and he really brought out the comedy of the role.  Zoe Berry also captured the mannerisms of dim-witted Alice beautifully.  

Paul Berry, although badly miscast as far as age was concerned, did a great job with his characterisation of Frank Pickle.  He made Frank extremely endearing and believable despite an atrocious attempt at trying to look older with grey hair spray and a rather dodgy looking moustache!  Jimmy Allan put in a good effort with Hugo, but I felt that he portrayed him as more of a village idiot, rather than the gentle, loveable, put down, Hugo of the tv series. Chris Playle’s Letitia did well in the characterisation of her part and Alan ‘Skippy’ Mann as bigoted David Horton could have done with playing the role with more confidence as sadly a lot of good lines were lost in his delivery.  

Confidence is clearly something that Jenny Hitchcock isn’t lacking in.  Jenny had certainly done her homework for this part.  Aside from having all the physical attributes to give a convincing appearance as vicar, Geraldine, she also completely embodied the characterisation in her performance too.  Her voice and mannerisms were spot on and I really enjoyed watching her.

This production has an impressive looking set split between the church’s committee meeting room to the right and Geraldine’s living room on the left.  Like a lot of groups these days, a production isn’t complete without the use of projection and I liked the way that the stained glass window in the committee room became a tv screen, which then played the familiar “The Lord is my Shepherd” theme tune and then rolled the original Vicar of Dibley titles, introducing us to the characters.  This was also used towards the end of the show with some very funny exterior footage of the cast, which had the audience giggling away.

The play is pieced together from three separate episodes of the series and a lot of the scenes were broken up by time lapses.  These were done with ‘black outs’ and the sound of ticking so as not to confuse the audience, I assume.  There were quite a lot of these throughout the show and, for me, it did slow down the pace of the show somewhat.  It’s a shame that the pieces couldn’t have been longer because just as the audience were getting going, another time lapse would cut in. A good choice of musical interludes was used which helped ease the flow of scene changes somewhat.

If you are an ardent Vicar of Dibley fan, I think you will really enjoy this production.  The Players have really worked hard to get their performances as close to the television show characters as possible.  I found myself frequently laughing out loud, although on the night I saw it, the audience were strangely quiet.  Overall, The Players have done a pretty credible job with this production with some really good performances from the central cast and a happy, appreciative audience leaving the auditorium.

And, so as not to let us forget that they are first and foremost a musical theatre group, after the bows are taken, we are given a beautifully harmonised rendition of the “Lord is my Shepherd”. 

A perfect way to end the evening.


All productions will have a collection for Comic Relief at the end of the performance.


www.southendtheatres.org.uk

What the audience thought

Rachel Childs, 26, Hockley “I thought it was solidly very good. Characterisations were excellent and they paid attention to fine detail. It did lack a little in pace and I thought the blackouts were a bit slow. Jim Trott stood out for me.”

Lynsey Childs, 55, Hockley “Jim was spot on, even the way he sat. He could step into that part and no one would notice. I thought it was slow to start but got better by the end. It brought back memories of watching the tv show."