Hallelujah! Why Rev is just heavenly TV

It's time to offer up some praise to the gods of TV because tonight Tom Hollander returns in his best small screen role as The Reverend Adam Smallbone, the long (long) suffering vicar with an inner city parish in Rev.

Baby Smallbone makes a grand entrance to open the third series of this lugubriously endearing sitcom, joining her dad - the world-weary but eternally optimistic Rev Adam (Tom Hollander) - and her slightly less idealistic mum Alex (Olivia Colman).

The divine cherry on top of the comedy cake is the perfect pairing of Getting On's Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine as cost-cutting church types who sit somewhere below God but well above our Rev on the heavenly ladder.

This puts them in a position to 'reorganise' his church out of existence unless he can come up with some PC box-ticking inspiration pretty darn quick.

Radio Times review

St Saviour's Church is under threat as we return to east London and the pastoral care of the Rev Adam Smallbone (Tom Hollander), who's now dad to a sweet baby daughter. As he changes nappies, the new Area Dean and Diocesan Secretary (Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine) drop dark hints of closure.

There aren't any belly laughs in Rev., but that doesn't matter as there are plenty of smiles, because it's that rarity, a good-hearted sitcom without guile or meanness. Adam is a genial pragmatist (except when it comes to fixing the church's dangerously faulty wiring), devout, of course, but without any of that off-putting zeal. He wants to improve his community's grim children's playground and launches a fundraising campaign with the local imam (Fonejacker Kayvan Novak).

All of Rev's great characters are back, notably the terrifying Archdeacon (Simon McBurney) and the decrepit Colin (Steve Evets).

Back (at last) for a third series, Tom Hollander's beleaguered cleric Adam Smallbone and wife Alex (Olivia Colman) are now the parents of a baby daughter, but the finances of St Saviour's are still threadbare. Enter two welcome additions - played by Getting On's Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine - an area dean and diocesan secretary intent on shutting down Adam's church. Can an ecumenical church fête, shared by the go-ahead imam of a nearby mosque (and played by Kayvan Novak) save the day?

Tom Hollander and Olivia Colman interviewed by vicar

Rev Dr Giles Fraser discovered one of the Rev characters is based on him...

Series 3 gets off to a quite unforgettable start tonight as we witness the sudden birth of Adam and Alex's baby daughter in the back of a black cab. But what will burn this scene forever into your memory is the unlikely member of the cast who has the honour of acting as midwife.

Fast forward several months and while Adoha and Colin (Ellen Thomas and Steve Evets) are both desperate to be godparents to baby Katie there's a much less welcome arrival in the shape of two church officials.

The new area dean and diocesan secretary (the great double act of Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine) will put the future of St Saviour's in doubt. Adam (Tom Hollander) has to go all out to convince them that his church is thriving, even if it struggles to achieve even a tenth of the turnout of the nearby mosque. So he teams up with the local imam (Fonejacker's Kayvan Novak) to raise funds to pay for a children's playground.

Apart from that terrific opening set piece, Rev isn't a comedy that tends to go in for grand gestures, preferring instead for the humour to bubble up gently from the depth of its wildly assorted characters ranging from Archdeacon Robert (Simon McBurney) at the top all the way down to Mick (Jimmy Akingbola).

Rev, BBC Two, review

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