Geraldine is the bouncy, bubbly, curvy female Vicar of Dibley. She has a keen sense of moral correctness and will stand up for injustice; she also has a deep love of the people of Dibley despite their many flaws! She has an even greater love of chocolate and ice-cream... especially when depressed (which is regularly the case)!

Geraldine recounts in one episode her sense of calling into the ministry on one occasion when reading the Bible, and her beliefs are generally mainstream Christian; she has the occasional problem with persuading others of the same, for example she has to tell Alice that her mother doesn't need to wash the carpet for when Jesus comes back (at the end of time)!

Her sexual ethics match village standards rather more closely then Biblical ethics, for she speaks very lustfully of any slightly eligible man who should visit the village as well as flirting outrageously with them, and excuses away pre-marital sex whenever the opportunity of it should arise.

Her deep longing for a partner was revealed when she even considered marrying David, despite her re-considering and seeing sense at last minute! When she becomes love-struck, she does it big-style, and when she becomes depressed, ditto; the remedying of the latter tends to involve enormous quantities of chocolate, ice-cream. Nevertheless, Geraldine brought with her a great sense of vitality that was previously missing in the village; she's often acknowledged by the villagers for this.

Alice is a few sandwiches (and cakes, and pork pies, and sausage rolls...) short of a picnic. She has a heart of gold but doesn't understand many of the common issues of life, nor Geraldine's jokes.

Alice's character develops when she falls in love with Hugo, has her first kiss, becomes married, and gives birth to several children. Her plethora of children and her work in the Sunday school but suit her childlike understanding of the world. In one episode, we meet her sister and her mother, who are dippier than herself.

She's very sensitive and easily offended. More amusing and key to the plot of the show is the way she's also easily confused, and has a vivid imagination surrounding what's normal (such as Teletubby bridesmaids and pageboys). She's also usually an embarrassment to both Geraldine who was quickly adapted as her best (only?) friend, and her father-in-law David.

Poor Hugo is the veritable puppet of his controlling father. He was brought up only by David for at least some of his childhood, and his upbringing was verging on emotionally abusive. He aims to avoid conflict, and always aims to please, but blossoms upon his romantic marriage to Alice.

David is one of those people who enjoys being in charge and assumes he is: he might even be described as being a bit power-trippy. He's Cambridge educated; upper-class; very wealthy; politically very right-wing; a Conservative voter; divorced (though an upholder of stern traditional family values); and seeks after tradition, and law and order: rules must always be upheld!

David certainly isn't the most tolerant of people, and he doesn't suffer fools gladly. He's the kind of person who enjoys doing good deeds, but only when it will benefit him in some way; either to make him look like a nice person or if the good deeds will further his cause in some way. He finds Geraldine difficult to get on with at times because of her gender; progressive ideals and desire to try new things, as well as her tolerance.

David also can't stand Alice, and takes every opportunity to be horrible to her publicly. Actually, he's horrible to everyone publicly, including his son, when given the chance! Deep down, though, he's lacking contentment which he sees as only available in a second marriage, hopefully to Geraldine. Well, it is said that love and hate aren't very dissimilar emotions!

Frank is very "English" and very "public school": highly eccentric in both manner and dress, and outstandingly well-spoken. Although, whilst he speaks exceptionally well linguistically, most of the Dibley inhabitants would wish he would speak a little – no – a lot less, for he's intensely verbose and has been known to bore people to sleep and even to suicide when he speaks!

Despite admitting attraction to many a woman, we discover he's a closet homosexual - he dropped the occasional hint towards his leanings in several episodes and that came out in style on Radio Dibley (although everyone avoided his show and is therefore still none the wiser!).

His strong memory of the uneventful, such as when the pub completely sold out of crisps but still had pork scratchings aplenty or when the milkman was very slightly late, keeps him very amused but the residents very bored. As Clerk of the Parish Council, he's keen to take minutes as accurately as possible, but has a habit of dithering about the finer detail of things, such as whether to minute someone saying nothing, so the minutes end up taking twice as long to record as the meeting itself!

Jim has a very unfortunate stutter insofar as he always precedes almost every statement he makes with "No, no, no, no, no..." which the other residents find annoying, time-consuming and confusing when trying to gain a straight answer from him. This aside, Jim spends a lot of time generally dithering anyway and so he takes a long time to get anything done.

He often speaks of his sexual desire for all people female (in contrast to Owen). We once meet his wife who has the opposite stutter to him, preceding every statement with "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...": the perfect marriage?

Owen often has gastric health complaints and describes these in disgustingly graphic detail. He's a bachelor with broad tastes... he often hints at both desiring after and having had previous relationships with animals, as well as women. Like many of the other male residents, he lusts after Geraldine also.

Leticia is a very caring lady who always longs to provide nourishing refreshment and sustenance to everyone, and ensure the church is full of attractive flower arrangements during Sunday worship.

The problem is her creativity could be described as rather eccentric: her mourning flower arrangement included pineapple! Her palette is a bit odd too, as she's created countless dishes which require, shall we say, an acquired taste? They include parsnip brownies. The villagers fear her cooking but eat it out of courtesy, which makes her happy, encouraging her to cook more. Shame.

Laticia dies in the 1996 Easter special.

David's tall, dark (grey), handsome brother is the archetypal womaniser. We see him twice throughout the sitcom: the first time he sweeps Geraldine off her feet and they have hot *ahem*; the second, he dumps her for the girlfriend he was seeing all along. Geraldine is left distraught and bitter.

Geraldine fell head-over-heels in love with Tristram when he was part of the team who were sent to the village to help film Songs of Praise. She remained besotted with him, until later on when he returned with his fiancée to ask Geraldine to marry them. Once again, Geraldine was left distraught.