For a man who did nothing but make me laugh, Trevor Peacock, who is best known for playing Jim Trott in The Vicar of Dibley, has certainly left me very sad today.
In a cast of superbly talented actors who brought their gloriously well created characters to life with comic perfection, Trevor Peacock was my favourite precisely because he played a character who was so bumbling but so kindhearted and decent too.
Best known for his catchphrase “No, no, no, no, no …”, Trott was the sort of character you loved with, never at, because he was such a decent human being.
Everyone else might be a little flawed at times, yes even dear Geraldine the vicar (played perfectly by Dawn French), save for Jim’s bestie Frank Pickle (John Bluthal) who was adorably sweet too, but Jim was the one who had the vicar’s back, who invited her for Christmas lunch (again with Frank) and who made sure she knew how much she was loved and appreciated by Jim and the village as a whole.
He was, in short, a delight, brought vividly, memorably and adorably to life by Peacock who found the inner humanity in his character so that he was always funny but never an object of ridicule.
Of course, the character was written superbly well, but Peacock was the one who gave him presence and personality and who add immeasurably to the sitcom perfectly that is and will always be The Vicar of Dibley, which recently returned for a pandemic-appropriate Zoom-based Christmas special.
Like many actors who become known for a signature role, he was also talented in many other respects as the BBC makes beautifully clear.
Although most famous for the long-running Vicar of Dibley, Peacock was also an accomplished Shakespearean actor, starring in a number of BBC productions including Titus Andronicus, Twelfth Night and Henry V.
The actor also appeared in the 1990 movie version of Hamlet and a 2000 production of Don Quixote.
And he was a successful musician and songwriter. He appeared with the Beatles in a 1964 television special Around the Beatles, and wrote a number of pop hits.
But I will love Trevor Peacock most for giving me a brilliantly caring, funny, adorable character who made you glad, along with a superlative cast, that you got to spend time in the warm and cosy loveliness of Dibley.
May you forever make people smile Trevor Peacock. #RIP
For more on this man’s remarkable life, go to the BBC.