Brighton Year-Round 2024

The Vicar of Dibley

Brighton Little Theatre

Genre: Adaptation, Comedy, Contemporary, Drama, New Writing, Theatre

Venue: Brighton Little Theatre

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Here’s a thing. Adaptor and director Tina Sitko was told by Richard Curtis – who wrote The Vicar of Dibley with Paul Mayhew-Archer – to “do what you want with the TV scripts”. No pressure.

And so Brighton Little Theatre has a first, a delicious (well, there’s Mrs Cropley’s snails) hommage to the TV original with some of its highpoints. First appearing at BOAT last week, it runs in the Little Theatre till June 29^th.

There’s two outstanding elements here. TV adaptations can be dire, and often are. Sitko’s production excels in the neat telescoping of some key episodes into satisfying drama. That’s partly helped by Curtis’ and Mayhew-Archer’s original writing: they’re punch-line rich but gentle, funny, beautifully constructed.

Sitko though dovetails a couple of plots – the Vicar’s arrival, the romance between Alice and Hugo, the late arrival of rake Simon Horton and unwanted advances elsewhere – into a seamless narrative. One or two moments, Simon’s past for instance, are also amplified in the credits-video – a singular reveal hinting at things many of us know from the original.

The other outstanding feature is the cast’s delighted homage to the original characters. Never mimetic, but inflected with their own take, there’s a mix of startling recognition with a fresh edge.

As with nearly all BLT productions, there’s a terrific repertory company feel of returning regulars with some fresh talent. It renders ensemble work seemingly effortless.

The opening church hall meeting, primed to welcome the new vicar, introduces local grandee and chair David Horton (suave Andrew Bird). It’s an adroit performance; less chilly than the original, and here without the story that humanises David completely.

There’s his twittish Hugo Horton. Sam Masters here presents as affably foolish, expensively veneered from appearing quite the drooling dolt. The dialogue appears a notch up from Alice’s, for instance, despite both being Mrs and Mr Cactus in the new Vicar’s eyes. A case of male-writer bias? Masters we learn though is one half of a star team.

Over-literal minute-taker Frank Pickle (Mimi Goddard) is here an original twirl of feedback, when twittering was still twittering: Goddard’s gently reinvented Frank. Jim Trott (a consummate Gerry Wicks) is a fusillade of “no no no no no… yes”, scrubby-haired leers and ancient sexual history.

Farmer Owen Newitt (Paul Morley) is a towering take on the original: repellent personal habits mix with bizarre aspirations. Like Wicks there’s a darkly bright vocality but also a mix of pathos and total obliviousness.

Mrs Cropley (Ann Atkins) has less to do but stud missed cues with deafness, but Akins is gifted a scrumptious – I use that word with care – monologue on her recipes. It facilitates a final scene-change but allows Atkins’ virtuosic aria on cooking snails.

 Steven Adams’ set involves video-projection of the original series intercut seamlessly with the new cast, and sheets doubling as projection screens sweep into view, particularly at the start and end.  The set’s a deliberately simple affair of the church hall in clean comedic self-colours, with a more realist landscape painted (Tom and Alison Williams) when the door’s opened.

Alice Springs Tinker (Mandy-Jane Jackson) is one of the best reasons to see this adaptation. Her interactions with the Vicar and supremely Masters’ Hugo involve almost operatic scenas of idiocy. Jackson’s command of Alice’s blissful world tripped up with minor terrors (affectingly realised) is matched with her full-on awakening with Masters and their physical comedy of attraction. Things tend toward marriage, but there’s three impediments. Not just David, but a revelation of Greek proportions, and an intervention.

Geraldine Granger (Tania Newton) has to anchor this production and she does: quick-firing wit as both spontaneous amusement and a form of defence. Warm, commandingly-voiced with a comedic curl to her delivery, Newton’s a more than worthy Vicar, with less of the smirk of the original, more of the forthright, and all the panic. You begin to reimagine her in Newton’s hands.

Other parts are played by the hard-working crew. Sex-throb and late arrival Simon Horton (Myles Locke, also stage manager) causes Geraldine to dye her hair in pure excitement though his backstory is dealt with in the end-video. Which might appear either in the interval or the scene-change after Atkins. We need the cast’s joyful energy at the wedding to see us out.

There’s a key intervention by a hatted Woman (Suzanne Heritage, also DSM) though prize for best hat has to be Alice’s surprise at the end. Elsewhere Tina Sitko and Assistant Director Joseph Bentley appear as a wedding couple, and Parishioners Rosalind Caldwell, Dixie Humberstone Ford (both ASMs) and Lidija Ablamska.

This is a must-see. If there’s a ticket, grab it.

Published June 26, 2024June 26, 2024 by Simon Jenner