What a wonderful series; I had heard about it but never seen it and finally the chance to hire it came about. I had my doubts, having been scarred by the rector's wife a couple of weeks ago, but this is a totally different kettle of fish, and funny, serious, and real. Great acting, wonderful characters and gentle humour. And upbeat!! The vicar is a highly likable character and he brings a reality to the fact of a man with faith that many series would scorn. Here he is not a villain, but a man trying to do the best he can with the lot he has chosen. It's refreshing to see a clergyman portrayed as a real human being, not a warped or bitter character, and a normal non-resentful wife.
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selffamily27 March 2013
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brenstockton29 December 2018I'm not up on British religion -- I'm not up on any religion once it left behind the teaching of tolerance, peace and love and took up the search for power through politics -- so if I say something offensive to someone who follows the Church of England, just let me say up front that I apologize. That said, I must say I adore this vicar. He's often unsure, terribly vulnerable and flawed, but he means well by his congregation, his friends, his wife. He just has trouble sometimes keeping his human-ness in check. And that is why I loved this show. I also loved the last episode with its poignancy and doubt. The Rev. remained true to his character, as much as he always tried to be what he thought he was supposed to be, he was in the end just a human being.
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mailtheowens25 June 2013"Joking is undignified; that is why it is so good for your soul." G.K. Chesterton. This show is good for the soul. Minister's on TV are always portrayed as hell-breathing sledge hammers, naive, bumbling, pleasant wimps or something more sinister. (In Australia no one even bothers to include them as characters as God seems to be an irrelevancy in "the colonies".) But this show is nuanced, perceptive, vaguely shocking and laugh-out-loud funny. I really like the way Adam prays in his head. I pray like that too. It feels a bit like Adrian Plass, affectionately irreverent. Maybe I am being a "Nigel", but if I was a minister, I would very much like to be like this one. An unsentimental show about a peculiarly profound vocation.
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This is a series I had to watch alone. My wife didn't enjoy it, found it to be odd and boring. Maybe it caught me at the right time. I was going through a faith transition, mini crisis, of my own and I was looking for alternatives to how I had been religiously programmed.
Not that Rev provides answers to existential crisis. But, he shows a religious order that though it is built on money and returns, it is handled by Rev with care and love. There is a tension throughout between the institution of church and the care of the parishioners. I felt Rev's acceptance.
There is the struggle over the popularity of Orthodoxy (as Rev compares the packed church next door with its harsh rules and dogmatics to his own sparsely attended sacrament administered based on the two great commandments of love).
The series seemed to climax in season three and it became a little sentimentally dramatic in the end with the comparison of Rev to a Christlike role. But, I still watched with interest through to the final scenes with the Cross.
It was humorous, ironic, thoughtful and timely for me.
I couldn't eat cereal while watching, because the crunch in my ears caused me to miss some of the dialogue.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. -
HillstreetBunz29 April 2014This meditation on how a a Good man might fare as a Priest in modern inner city London is so real that, as in life, it's often almost impossible to know whether you want to laugh or cry. Often I did both. And at the same time. The story arc leads to flirting with the old postulation on what would we do to Jesus if he walked among us today, but the deeper insight is into what it means for us mere mortals, just to try to be good, even Christian, in this world, surrounded by the selfish and the self involved, the deluded and the indifferent. As writing it isn't being bettered anywhere on TV. As a company, all the players are brilliant, as the protagonist, Tom Hollander stakes a claim of such star quality, warmth and truth, as should make every writer and director beg to have him work with them. Along the way to the denouement, guest stars Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neesons involvement points to the richly deserved recognition that this show has received. The end is almost too much to take...but by a God I'm grateful that it got made.
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jackiefincken29 April 2021It is very funny . The amazing thing is my 7th. Great uncle was vicar of st Leonard's and is buried there in 1790 . I really hope the window was not smashed !
Really worth watching . But am sad if the church is like this now . In 1970's I worked opposite . It was lovely then . What a shame London is so bad now . -
I missed this the first time around as it didn't appeal but I'm pleased I gave it a chance. Great acting from all, in my opinion. I have only seen to the end of series 2 as for some reason, Drama decided not to show the third one (yet). I particularly liked the scene at the end of the Christmas episode where the diners are seated as in The Last Supper by da Vinci. A priceless touch!
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Laight10 May 2022It's not terribly exciting, and there are seldom any real plots, and very little actually happens, but it's a very nice story of an English vicar trying to do his best to please everyone around him. Tom Hollander is a great character actor but he struggles to be the lead in this -- the rest of the cast is so good it doesn't really matter. All in all, Rev. Is a nice place to land when you want a respite from the intense serious drama occupying most of the space on tv today.
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fiona_r_lamb14 March 2015So this week I was flying back from LA to Toronto on Air Canada and noticed a British sitcom on their entertainment system. I managed to watch 4 out of the 6 episodes on offer and LOVED every single second. The writing, characters and observations on life in general were so well done.
The first episode I watched centred around fundraising for a new playground by both Muslims and Christians. The Muslims raised $12K in a few days and the Reverend's congregation raised only 69 pence. Priceless! The Rev. is kind, compassionate and gentle but not without his own flaws and it's refreshing to see a religious character as both the main character and portrayed as NORMAL. With a wife and kid and dealing with all sorts of interesting parishioners. Mick, in particular, steals every scene he's in - HILARIOUS!!! Anyway, this show made my flight so much more palatable. Only wish we had this show in Canada so I could watch the rest. -
sparqui15 August 2017Not sure this really contains spoilers, but maybe for some people it will... This was a good show until season 3. Not sure what happened...new writers, perhaps? It was funny, fun and a lot of laughs. Then season 3 happened. It seemed to become mean spirited, not fun and had to take on all the 'social issues'.
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ygwerin110 June 2022I am catching up with the this show on the Drama TV channel, as I missed it when it was originally broadcast, it's supposedly BAFTA nominated though I really can't imagine what self respecting individual would wish to recommend this.
It's choc full of cartoon characters thrown together into some form of social tombola, the main character the 'Rev' of the title is Reverend Adam Smallbone, is the ineffectual vicar in a London parish so overly keen, and eager to please absolutely everyone, that he actually manages to please virtually no one.
This includes his long suffering spouse Alex, who it would appear wants to start a family rather than be a vicars wife, is constantly frustrated by the seemingly perpetual demands of his vacation.
The Archdeacon Robert seems to me that he considers the church as a business endeavour, as he spends his entire time acting as a form of middle manager, nipping around in his subsidised motor being paid, to chivvy the Rev into "meeting church defined arbitrary 'Targets'"
A character Adoha Onyeka is someone that I really can't understand how she fits in around the church, I expect I haven't watched enough episodes to realise if she volunteers her time there, what really surprises me is her attitude towards the Rev.
The character Colin Lambert is an archetypal layabout, who appears to use the Revs church as a virtual doss house, who loves to scrounge on the Revs generosity, at every available opportunity. -
I finally gave this show a go, for the last episode in the series, and it's left me completely bewildered as to what all the fuss has been about. I had tried it once previously only to find the credit sequence so annoying that I switched it off.
But, having read rave reviews in the press (Guardian, Telegraph, Standard), with columnists dubbing it 'brilliant', feting it as a masterpiece and praising the performances, I steeled myself to try again.
I really wish I hadn't bothered.
I found Tom Hollander entirely unprepossessing in a vaguely irritating way. His relationship with wife Olivia Colman had no ring of truth – their absurd polite arm's-length behaviour made it seem like they didn't know each other at all but had just been deposited on the same set together that day. She was phonily perky like someone instructed to alter her tone to 'jolly' and 'upbeat' as if talking to a child in need of special encouragement.
They are supported by a cast of characters who all have faces that you want to slap.
Is it meant to be a comedy? There was no humour in it, not a single funny line, bar the chap professing himself to be very good at humility.
I have never had much sympathy for self-indulgent people who lie in bed moping all day after a setback, as the lead did in this episode. After all, he has a wife, child and people who appear to respect him despite the fact that he comes across as a bit dim and self-centred.
Thank goodness this wasn't some gem that had passed me by but rather a travesty of a comedy/drama/whatever (I couldn't really tell), purporting to be intellectual and appealing for some reason to the moneyed upper-middle classes. -
susansundaisy19 March 2024If only Olivia Coleman weren't in this. Basically, this should be the story of an inner city vicar who is not really sure if he's making a difference. So if Olivia Coleman's character didn't exist, everything would be fine.
He could lust after the beautiful principal of the school, he could question his vocation and he could get a chance to openly discuss religion in a modern sitcom and that might be really helpful.
But it's hard to understand how these two people would even meet, let alone have sex or get married. They don't seem to know each other and they don't seem to have anything in common. It's like they just added her in as an afterthought.
So she is dressing up like a prostitute in the local convenience store to enhance their sex life and he's questioning the nature of existence. Just doesn't make any sense.
You would think that someone in his situation who decided to marry would be really in love and pretty certain about what they want to do with their life. I almost think she forgets what his job is.
Anyway, they have wonderful actors and they are all wasted with an absurd plot line.