No laughing matter

The BBC officially responded to complaints about the upcoming pro-Black Lives Matter sermon on BBC One's The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown by saying: 

In The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown, Geraldine shares with her congregation her take on some of the key stories of 2020, including clapping for the NHS, the Black Lives Matter movement, lockdown, and school exams being cancelled. She is a much-loved and well-established comic character and will be seen processing the year’s events in her familiar outspoken and high-spirited way. 

Meanwhile, Hugo Rifkind in The Times has watched the first 9-minute episode of the series and he really isn't selling it to me:

Ten minutes of The Vicar of Dibley eked not one laugh out of me whatsoever. It was like every joke you’ve thought of for yourself during those interminable lockdown Zoom chats, done back at you with a brittle smile....It was like it came from a parallel reality, as if written by people who had come across the concept of “jokes” in a book, but hadn’t experienced one themselves. 

Maybe Richard Curtis should get back together with his old Blackadder co-writer Ben Elton. As Upstart Crow shows Ben still knows what a joke is and can write funny ones.