A new sitcom about an inner-city London vicar may not sound promising, but Rev is laugh-out-loud funny. At its heart lies Adam Smallbone (Tom Hollander), whose congregation is suddenly swelled by the "on your knees, avoid the fees" brigade when rumours spread that the church school is about to get a glowing Ofsted report. Both an exploration of British hypocrisy and a warmly played character piece with some terrific lines. With Olivia Colman and Alexander Armstrong.

Tom Hollander makes a bid here to join Derek Nimmo and Dawn French in the small but cosy pantheon of sitcom vicars. He plays the Reverend Adam Smallbone, a well-meaning, unshaven, east London clergyman who smokes, drinks enthusiastically and does the splits at parties, but is sweetly ineffectual in the face of the problems he faces. They include a domineering archdeacon and a rash of pushy parents hoping to get their children into "his" C of E school, whose headmistress Smallbone clearly fancies. It's a gentle, ragged sort of comedy, short on belly laughs but with enough character-led jokes to offer hope for good things to come. Alexander Armstrong brings his expert comic timing to the role of a bluff MP who is one of the "On your knees, avoid the fees" crowd. The wonderful Olivia Colman seems (so far) slightly wasted in the role of the vicar's wife, but given time, and given Hollander's rumpled charm in the lead, it could be a quiet winner.

When Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews created Father Ted in 1995, they breathed new life into the stereotype of the comedy vicar, a character that for too long had been suffocated by the tyrannical stranglehold of Derek Nimmo. Unfortunately Richard Curtis simultaneously came up with The Vicar of Dibley, a programme as twee and mediocre as any number of Nimmo's cassock-based comedies.

Perhaps realising that the realm of the ecclesiastical sitcom hasn't been successfully exploited in a while, acclaimed comic actor Tom Hollander has co-created Rev, in which he plays a harassed vicar at a struggling inner city London church.

Sadly, despite the talent involved - the cast also includes Alexander Armstrong, Finding Eric's Steve Evets, Peep Show's Olivia Colman and comedian Miles Jupp - this low-key comedy is a disappointment. The blame must lie with writer James Wood, who also wrote the similarly underwhelming media satire Freezing, in which Hollander's ferocious comic performance was the sole highlight.

The jokes in Rev are sparse, weak and principally based around the supposedly amusing conceit of a vicar acting in ways you wouldn't expect. So, the Reverend Adam Smallbone, played with amiable anxiety by the always watchable Hollander, smokes, drinks, swears and enjoys sex with his wife.

So, I imagine, do a lot of modern priests - indeed, a group of them are credited as technical advisors - but that doesn't mean the concept is funny in itself. Father Ted admittedly employed similar material, albeit far more inventively than Wood does.

The opening episode takes underpowered swipes at middle-class pretentions and hypocrisies when Smallbone faces a moral dilemma over the sudden rise in church attendance due to a glowing Ofsted report on a local church school. But the episode just dawdles along and not even Hollander's bumbling charm can save it. Rev, like many sitcoms before, may improve as it goes on, but there's precious little here to encourage you to find out.

I've got a friend who's a vicar. Nice chap, pretty cool, not the sort whose job you'd necessarily guess if you spotted him in civvies.

So I thought perhaps I'd show him my preview DVD of this new sitcom, just to get his thoughts, seeing as the main character is a man of the cloth. Then I decided against it, because there's quite a bit of swearing and a fair few sexual references - and, in all honesty, not that many belly laughs.

Tom Hollander plays Reverend Adam Smallbone, preaching to a dwindling congregation at his London church - but surprised to discover, in this opening episode, that a lot of new faces are suddenly showing up. Surprised, that is, until he realises they have an ulterior motive. Olivia Colman and Alexander Armstrong also star.

Olivia Colman: Vicar's wife in Tom Hollander's Rev

Olivia Colman explains was like on the set of Rev, how she hopes the show will be received and why comparisons to the Vicar Of Dibley are wide of the mark.

Interview with the stars of Rev

Interviews with Tom Hollander, Olivia Colman, Steve Evets and Ellen Thomas.

Interview: Olivia Colman

We catch up with Peep Show actress Olivia Colman to find out all about her new BBC2 comedy series Rev...

Olivia Colman in Rev

Peep Show's Olivia Colman talks about her next TV role as a vicar's irreverent wife.

Based on a memoir by Simon Doonan, the creative director of Barneys department store, the second series of this camp and sweary sitcom comes to an end next week. Tonight Simon (Luke Ward-Wilkinson) recounts the story behind how he won the Turner Prize. The X Factor's Dannii Minogue turns up in a sprightly comic turn and there are some lovely jokes throughout, some of which err on the far side of strict decency. Olivia Colman and Aidan McArdle play Simon's parents.

Fashion designer Simon Doonan (Samuel Barnett) remembers an early trip to see the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest as this slightly silly and surreal comedy drama based on Doonan's real-life memoirs continues. Along with best friend Kylie he dreams of making a success of their boyband Emale and the pair leap at the chance to see Europe's campest pop stars in the flesh. Olivia Colman is also great fun as Simon's common mother who invites the new gay neighbours round for dinner only for the visit to end when one of the pair makes a pass at Simon's father.