Dawn French received hate mail from male vicars when they first aired the program. She said that some were hurtful, but she joked that they used some of the phrases as a source of dialogue in the program.
Dawn French initially requested to play Alice Tinker, because she felt the vicar wouldn't be funny enough, and that she understood Alice's humor. She later requested that the Vicar have some sort of faults - hence her being a bit lonely, a bit vain, and having a massive chocolate obsession.
Voted #3 on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom poll in 2004.
As of 2015, Dawn French (Geraldine), Trevor Peacock (Jim), and James Fleet (Hugo) are the only actors and actress to appear in all twenty episodes, and all six Comic Relief sketches.