Alice Springs Tinker Horton is a character in The Vicar of Dibley. She was played by Emma Chambers.
About Alice[]
She teaches art at the nursery school. Alice Horton is the verger at the town of Dibley and first learned under Reverend Pottle, until he died in 1994. Alice was then rather bewildered until the new Vicar came along.
Dim-witted and naive Alice is the vicar's best, and most loyal, friend in the mad village of Dibley. Having lived a very sheltered existence, and been reared by a clinically insane mother, Alice often drives the vicar to distraction with her useless advice, empty-headed comments and general misunderstanding of the world outside the village. However, there have been notable occasions where Alice has offered very loving and sincere advice, and has shown genuine concern for the vicar. Despite this, she is generally held in extremely low esteem by the other villagers, particularly David Horton, who detests her and her low intelligence.
It was never actually stated whether Dibley resident Alice was actually born there, but it's most likely as she states that she and Hugo had known each other for 26 years prior to their marriage, not to mention she talks a lot about the village's past. Alice became the verger at the local church, learning from the late Vicar, Reverend Pottle.
When the Reverend Pottle died and Reverend Geraldine Granger arrived,she and Alice quickly became friends. She has an unnamed mother who was later sectioned in an asylum, and a sister named Mary who is even less intelligent than Alice (in 'The Christmas Lunch Incident' she keeps mistaking Christmas for Easter) and is kept in the house, let out occasionally to meet guests.
Alice and Hugo were shown to be fond of each other and eventually married after the Vicar played Cupid. She gave birth to her first child, Geraldine (named for the Vicar), and then went on to have nine more unnamed children.
Family[]
- David Horton II - father-in-law & second cousin
- Hugo Horton - Husband & second cousin once removed
- Simon Horton - Uncle in law and second cousin
- Reg Dwight - second cousin
- Mary Tinker - sister
- David Horton I - father
- 9 unnamed children - children & second cousins twice removed
- Geraldine Horton - daughter & second cousin twice removed
- Mary Tinker - sister
- Alcoholic - step father
- Unnamed half sister in law
- Several unnamed half siblings
Trivia[]
- She rarely gets Geraldine's end jokes
- Her mum told her that Jesus Christ was born in Dunstable, with which she passed on to the Sunday school-Christmas Carol kids
- She gave birth to Geraldine Horton on December 24, when she was portraying Mary, and thought she actually had given birth to the "son of God"
- She believes that since her name rhymes with Chalice, she is a descendant of Jesus
- She believes that the reason why she had 10 children was to populate the Earth with God's children, to which Geraldine explained that it was because she doesn't know how condoms work.
- Her father is a alcohol-addict, or an irresponsible alcoholic
- Her father gave her a piggy bank when she was little and saved his money in it and told her that when she was older she could buy a castle with the money. Alice proposed that she used that money to help replace the church's stain-glass window that was shattered by a fallen tree during the storm. When Geraldine counts up Alice's money, excluding the money that wasn't British mint, it added up to a farthing.
- Her father was drunk dusk to dawn
- Alice has a sister, though her mother told her about her father's children in the other villages, making them her half siblings
- She spread gossip that Geraldine was a lesbian, after misunderstanding that Rachel Hunter had come to quickly change her clothes at the vicarage, not have sex.