Rev.

I may have written a few times that I’m not religious, and about my annoyance I should feel the need to state this before writing anything that touches on religion. I shouldn’t now but those practicing atheists annoy me every time I think about them, which of course is every time I write on the subject. Maybe I’ll go back to labelling myself agnostic (the world loves a label) so as to divorce myself from the Dawkins sect – in a non-judgemental way of course.

I wonder how many atheists watched Rev? OK, sorry, no more – I wonder how many avoided Rev due to its religious context? That’s a fair question since I almost missed it myself; having endured a lifetime exposure to some awful caricature I thought why put myself through any more? It’s probably the dog collar that invites such lazy writing, or maybe television is generally crap and I notice it more when a ‘person of the cloth’ is involved. That’s not to mention The Vicar of Dibley…

Rev on the other hand is brilliant, though I’m finding it hard to pinpoint exactly why I liked it so much. It’s full of the usual comedy ‘characters’ and normally that’s enough to have me reaching for the remote. There’s the successful wife who is the rock of the relationship, the heavy drinking homeless guy, the prudish reserve Reverend (what are they called?), the overly enthusiastic member of the congregation and the scary figure of authority in the Archdeacon. There’s an air of decay under which these people live their lives and I think it wins because it feels authentic. It’s a world going to seed yet full of warmth and kindness, people who actually care for each other. Oh, and it has real humour too. But I like how Tom Hollander put it in a recent interview:

...they’re just funny jokes, aren’t they? And they’re said with love.