In 2010, a number of people in the RA Blogosphere participated in a mass blogging exercise in honour of the work of actor Richard Armitage. This year, the RA Blogosphere has expanded and we have 16 participating blogs. My topic of choice is RA's role in the Vicar of Dibley Christmas Specials which first aired in the UK in 2006 and in Australia in December 2007. The reason I have chosen this topic is simply because it was the first time I had seen RA onscreen. (Actually, that's not strictly correct - I had seen him as Guy of Gisborne briefly in BBC's Robin Hood, had registered that he looked excessively good looking to be the villain in the piece, but as the show had aired at a time which conflicted with Evensong, I didn't really have time to watch it).
My viewer relationship with Vicar of Dibley started with the first ever episode made. Throughout my life I have what I can only describe as a very ambivolent relationship with the Anglican Church and my faith journey has fluctuated between being a regular church goer to agnostic. Picture a slow moving pendulum swinging between faith and agnosticism and I think that about describes my struggle with the Church. During a period of agnosticism when my children were preschoolers and I was not even remotely interested in attending Church, I was asked by a friend to go with her to a study group run by a lady who was at the time a Deacon in the Anglican Church here. This woman had indeed had her own battles with faith and the Church, and was, at the time I met her, hoping to be ordained so that she could run her own Parish. Women's ordination in the Anglican church was rife with controversy in those days, and there were (and still are) many opponents to women priests in our society. The first groups of women to be ordained (of which my friend was one), had to be extremely strong in their determination to follow their calling given the opposition that was thrown in their way.
The first episode of Vicar of Dibley was aired around the time surrounding the controversy of women's ordination. As preparation for the series, Richard Curtis, writer, and Dawn French, met with a priest by the name of Joy Carroll who was able to give them some background for their first episode. This episode caught my attention and because of my vacillating interest in Church and its politics, my love of English villages and English scenery, and of course my admiration for Dawn French, I became an ardent fan. Did you know however, that Dawn French received "hate mail" from the anti woman-priest lobby because she portrayed a woman priest?
After the 2004 Specials, I thought we had seen the last of the Vicar until, to my surprise and delight, I discovered that they had made a 2006 Special where Geraldine finally succeeds in love. Those of us who have followed Geraldine's career over a span of 10 years were thrilled. Of course, on a personal note, the 2006 specials (which came at a time of intense emotional struggles for our family) thrust me unwittingly headlong into the RA fandom .... so here I am today writing posts for the FanstRAvaganza.
I thought for this first post, I would provide a quick background for the reader with regard to some of the scenes that relate to past episodes. Fans of Richard Armitage who have only watched the two episodes he was in, may have wondered what the significance of the puddle scene was, or why Geraldine immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion in the proposal scene. There were a number of small, enjoyable sections that related to past episodes in these two specials.
Firstly, Geraldine had been unlucky in love and when we meet her in the Handsome Stranger episode she is feeling alone and "left on the shelf". What I liked about the character was that it was implied that she had some life experience prior to training for the priesthood. (Many of the more pious viewers felt her earthiness was unrealistic, but as the whole village is a caricature, I think the writing can be forgiven for making her irreverent in parts):
Geraldine's "past" unlucky encounters.
1. Tristram from "Songs of Praise". Tristram was the producer for the TV documentary "Songs of Praise" and he decided to do an episode featuring the Parish of Dibley and Geraldine as a woman priest. Geraldine has an immediate crush on him only to find that he is living with one of his colleagues.
Tristram makes another appearance in Geraldine's life at Christmas time when he appears unexpectedly at her door. To her surprise and joy, he asks her to marry him.
Of course, Tristram really wants Geraldine to be the Celebrant at his wedding and this is made clear to Geraldine once he brings his fiancé in to meet her, thus dashing her hopes of escaping the village completely. When she finally meets Harry and he proposes, she immediately jumps to the conclusion that he wants her as a Celebrant at his wedding given the fact that she thinks he is living with Rosie, and she has only known him for a short time. It is a deja vu situation but in Harry's case, she was wrong.
2. Owen. A misunderstanding completely arises when Geraldine takes pity on Owen and allows him to kiss her. To her horror he proposes to her and she needs a fortifying few drinks to dampen his ardour.
3. Simon Horton (David's younger brother). A brief love affair for Geraldine and the audience had hopes that she at last had found her match. It was unfortunately short lived. (I could never take to this character).
There are a few romantic moments in this episode as the couple walk around the countryside. (To quote Harry - " a lovely long walk to really get the romantic juices flowing"). Geraldine and Simon play at jumping in the puddles along the lane until Geraldine gets more than she bargains for. The puddle makes a re-appearance in The Handsome Stranger.
4. David Horton - David thinks he is in love with Geraldine because he suddenly finds himself agreeing more than disagreeing with her. To win her, he decides to become less formal, donate more to charity and become a member of the Labor party (which hurt deeply given his Conservative background). Geraldine momentarily accepts but regrets it later after a dream where her hero, Sean Bean, comes rushing to save her from a disastrous wedding. (Sean Bean does actually make an appearance in this episode, BTW).
5. The Handsome Stranger - Harry Kennedy. When Geraldine has almost given up hope of finding the right man, and resorts to watching romances like "Sense and Sensibility", who should buy a cottage in the village, but Harry.
This week I will be exploring more about Harry and Geraldine. To complete this post, I will include an interview with Richard Armitage that appeared in our Australian newspapers when it first aired here in Australia.
Heaven-sent bloke
Michael IdatoSydney Morning HeraldDecember 10, 2007
"I grew up watching French and Saunders" ... Richard Armitage.
Richard Armitage, who spends most of his working year facing off with Robin Hood as the nefarious Guy of Gisborne, says even jobbing actors get star struck.
Playing opposite comedian Dawn French in the twoVicar of Dibley Christmas specials, he says it "took a long time before I stopped sitting there, looking across the table and saying, 'What the f--- am I doing here?"'
Armitage comes to the village of Dibley as Harry Kennedy, a London accountant in the midst of a sea change. He meets Geraldine Granger (French), the vicar at St Barnabas's Church, and a romance is kindled.
"I suppose he's looking for some peace on a little Buddhist journey," Armitage says. "It's not really explored in depth in the story but he's been working in the city and he's burned out and he's come to the country to find some harmony."
Harmony? Dibley? Hardly.
Geraldine and Harry's romance hits its first stumbling block when he is sighted with the very attractive Rosie (Keeley Hawes), while Alice (Emma Chambers), Dibley's verger (an Anglican lay person who works in the church), comes to believe she is descended from Jesus after reading The Da Vinci Code. The clue? Her name rhymes with "chalice".
Even though the series has been around since 1994, only 18 episodes have been produced, plus a handful of short segments for the British charity Comic Relief. Early episodes focused on Geraldine's difficulty adapting to country life, the town's difficulty in adapting to a female vicar and the romance between Alice and Hugo Horton (James Fleet) - recent episodes have explored Geraldine's desire to marry. But is Harry Kennedy Mr Right? Armitage says he just might be.
Armitage is an accomplished dramatic actor but admits he approaches comedy - where there is less emphasis on the complexities of the character and more on mining the moment for its humour - with some trepidation.
"I have done very little comedy and I'm so not funny and Dawn is probably one of the funniest women in the country," he says.
"But the fantastic thing about Dawn was that she completely destroyed my fears about comedians. I'd always thought they would be the funniest people but she was tentative with everybody, particularly with me, and she found out where my sense of humour was lying and started to play with me. Once she'd located it, she started pushing my buttons.
"We actually have very similar senses of humour and ... it occurred to me the reason we have similar senses of humour is that I grew up watching French & Saunders, so my sense of humour had been shaped by her."
The first Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special airs on the ABC on Wednesday at 8.35pm.
Be sure to visit the other blogs participating in the FanstRAvaganza If you need a link, here they are:
- Servetus- Me + Richard - http://meandrichard.wordpress.com/
- Skully- The Spooks Fan Blog - http://spooksfanblog.com/
- Traxy- The Squeee! - http://thesqueee.blogspot.com/
- Avalon- Avalon's Blog - http://avalon-medieval.blogspot.com/
- Phylly- Phylly's Faves - http://phyllysfaves.blogspot.com/
- "Frenz"- RA Frenzy - http://rafrenzy.com/
- Nat- The RA Fan Blog - http://armitagefanblog.blogspot.com/
- Sarah- From the Quill Tip - http://fromthequilltip.blogspot.com
- Christine- CDoart - http://cdoart.blogspot.com/
- Pi- Nevermind, Mr. Armitage - http://nevermindmrarmitage.blogspot.com/
- Prue- Mesmered’s Blog- http://mesmered.wordpress.com/
- Musa- White Rose Writing- http://whiterosewritings.blogspot.com/
- Judiang -- Confessions of a Watcher http://judiang.wordpress.com/
- bccmee -- Richard Armitage Vids & Graphics http://fanvideos.wordpress.com/