The Vicar of Dibley has ben voted one of Britain's all-time favourite sitcoms. As a result Dawn French returns for not one, but three more episodes, Steve Pratt reports.

RETURNING for the Christmas editions of The Vicar Of Dibley was "like putting a nice old cardie on", says comedy star Dawn French. The sit-com - voted Britain's third favourite in a BBC poll earlier this year - returns for two special episodes with French's the Rev Geraldine Granger reunited with co-stars Gary Waldhorn (David), James Fleet (Hugo), Emma Chambers (Alice),Trevor Peacock (Jim), Roger Lloyd Pack (Owen)

and John Bluthal (Frank) for the first time in five years.

"On the first day of rehearsals we all went to the Parish Council room and sat at the same places around the table, and it just felt like putting a nice old cardie on," says French. "Geraldine is getting older - and wider - and wonders whether she's wasted her life because she's been in Dibley for ten years. She's wondering whether she's made the right decision to be there at all."

French faced a similar dilemma when asked to play once more the female vicar she first impersonated a decade ago. Writers Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer sent her a very rough outline of the first episode in a bid to persuade her. She thought Geraldine was too much of a goodie two shoes, lacking any of the faults that she believed good, central comedy characters needed.

"She's not vain, she's not a bully, she's not an ignoramus and she's not pompous. I thought, 'Am I just going to sit there while everybody else has all the big gags? And sometimes it's like that," says French. "Then Richard said, 'I need you to be in the middle of it, to steer it - Geraldine's the only sane one in the village. You've got to be the one who's thinking, 'Why are all these people mad?'.'

"So I dallied with my decision until Richard sent me a list of people who would be much better in the part and who are much better actresses than me, and then I thought I'd better get on with it and I'm very glad I did."

On the face of it, The Vicar Of Dibley may seem old-fashioned and cosy. Yet when it was first written it wasn't yet church law that women could be priests, which made it very political to begin with. "It was a very eye-opening experience because a lot of the mail I got was from vicars, a lot of them men. These were Christian people, using appalling language and telling me where to shove it, basically, and I was astounded by that."

The two Christmas programmes and a Comic Relief special next year promise to tackle more issues in a comic set-up. She feels it's easier for Curtis to write when there's issues he wants to tackle. In a previous Vicar of Dibley Christmas special, Geraldine had to eat four Christmas dinners in one day. "The Brussels Sprouts Christmas Special," she says. "I love that episode but have suffered for it ever since. People shouted at me, 'How did you eat all that food?' and I think, what I actually ate was three Brussels sprouts. I didn't touch anything else. It's nice that people believe it, though. Luckily, I love Brussels sprouts."

She also loves Christmas, even if she leaves husband Lenny Henry to do all the cooking as she's a rubbish cook. "I love what I cook and absolutely nobody else does," she says.

"I do all the washing up, table setting and present buying. That's more my area and I do quite a lot of that so I feel like I've contributed. And I do quite a lot of eating, so I'm appreciative of it all."

She's a great fan of Christmas TV but doubts if she'll watch The Vicar Of Dibley. "I don't know if I could bear that. I don't know if I could sit and watch it, actually. I might let them all watch it and I'll go somewhere else," she says.

* The Vicar Of Dibley: Christmas Day, BBC1, 9.25pm, and on New Year's Day

Published: 23/12/2004