Emma Chambers

Alice Tinker takes her time beside Dawn French, and Emma Chambers does not hurry her along. In The Vicar of Dibley (1994), she gives Alice a speaking rhythm that leaves both actors room to get a laugh. We warmed to Alice because Chambers let her take her time without seeming impatient with her foolishness. This is fine supporting comedy, with a performer allowed to do more than supply a cue for the star.

That comic innocence was only part of the work. On stage, Chambers played troubled or imaginative teenagers in Alan Ayckbourn plays, including Invisible Friends (1989); on television, she played Charity Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit (1994). Alice followed in the same year and became the role that defined her public image. Those earlier parts are worth remembering when the temptation is to treat her skill at playing someone dim as the whole of her acting.

Notting Hill (1999) gives her the star-struck Honey Thacker and a chance to put that comic timing into one-liners. Richard Curtis supplies the lines, while Roger Michell keeps the film's affection credible around Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. We like its humour and warmth, though the second half spends too long finding obstacles for the romance. Honey makes a pleasing introduction to Chambers, but the sustained partnership with French gives us more reason to return to her television work.

The reservation with The Vicar of Dibley is that its writing sometimes leans too heavily on our familiarity with the villagers. Chambers helps distinguish Alice from the rest of that company, but an individual speaking rhythm cannot make every familiar joke fresh. There is a real pleasure in the cast's refusal to make the villagers contemptible, even when the material offers little surprise. Start with Chambers beside French, provided familiar sitcom jokes do not spoil the evening.