BBC Big Night In: Vicar of Dibley urges viewers to ‘praise the lord and praise the NHS’ as Dawn French reprises iconic role

Charity event sketch also saw Reverend Geraldine make a ‘chocolate bra’ and speak of her friends on the Dibley Parish Council

Dawn French has reprised her iconic Vicar of Dibley role for the BBC’s Big Night In, urging viewers to “praise the lord and praise the NHS” in a pre-recorded message of hope.

French took centre stage on the channel’s live charity event, put together by Comic Relief and Children in Need to raise money in the fight against coronavirus.

Wearing her trademark dog collar, Reverend Geraldine said that “life goes on, and this will pass”.

“We shouldn’t dwell too much on the sadness, and try and think about all the happiness”. She then introduced a series of old clips from the original Vicar of Dibley series.

Earlier in her message, Geraldine said that she had this week taken part in the first meeting of Dibley Parish Council to be conducted entirely on the web-conferencing app Zoom.

“It was the best parish council meeting ever!” she recalled. “Because none of the counsellors know how to get onto Zoom, so it was just me there by myself and making all the decisions.”

She also made a “chocolate bra” using a leftover Easter egg and corrected several misprints in the local paper, after her written message to Dibley’s residents led to a number of awkward misunderstandings.

“Firstly, I meant to congratulate Julie Barker and Lucy Clacket on having babies, not rabies,” she said. “Sorry if that caused any panic there. Secondly, I suggested going for a walk in the woods, so could the group of elderly gentlemen who’ve taken my misprint literally please stop doing that immediately.”

Follow along with the BBC’s Big Night In on our live blog.