One of my favorite classic Britcoms is "The Vicar of Dibley." This British sitcom featured Dawn French as the Reverend Geraldine Granger, whose spunk and positive attitude quickly won over her country parish despite their initial weariness over being assigned to a female vicar. It's a great program and well worth watching if you haven't seen it.
I got to pondering over "Vicar of Dibley" and got to wondering how the BBC could remake the program similar to how they recently did with "Keeping Up Appearances,""Porridge," and "Are You Being Served?" and I think I have a fun idea. I'm not a screenwriter and I'm highly unlikely to ever be able to produce my idea. So here is my idea for a new "Vicar of Dilbey" series.
I want to see a prequel "Vicar of Dibley" series. It won't feature Geraldine Granger as a seminary student. It won't feature any of the Dibley parish council members. Instead, it will be set in 1917 when the Reverend "Potty" Pottle was first assigned as the priest at St. Barnabus Church in Dibley.
We don't know a lot about Reverend Pottle. We know that he died during worship service at St. Barnabus during the first few moments of the first "Vicar of Dibley" episode in 1994. He was 102 at the time of his death, which means he would be 25 when he first arrived in Dibley. We know that he was eccentric. He struggled with alcohol. And we know that he preached the same sermon every Christmas. And he enjoyed sunbathing topless in his yard.
I think it would be fun to see how the village of Dibley with its simple countryfolk would react to the Reverend Pottle and his eccentric ways. None of the characters from the original program would be alive when he arrived, but there likely would be Hortons and Pickles and Newitts and Cropleys and Tinkers and others. It would be fun to create a new generation of Dibley residents. Well, an old generation of those who ran the village one hundred years ago!
I have one other idea that might make this more than a simple sitcom set in the past. One of the main hooks for "Vicar of Dibley" had to do with the introduction of a female vicar to this community. The idea of a female vicar was very controversial when this program began. It still is to some degree. A sitcom about Reverend Pottle certainly wouldn't have the same controversial edge.
But it would if Potty Pottle ended up being a gay man -- or at least a sexually muddled man? What would Dibley think of that? Would they uncomfortably confuse his orientation with eccentricity? Or might they rise above their provincial natures and accept Reverend Pottle -- years before their time!
Anyway, that's my idea. I have no idea what I would call this hypothetical "Dibley" prequel. Something similar to the original title, but unique enough to be its own creature What do you think?