Rev 'rather good' says Archbishop of Canterbury

Senior church figures flock to praise BBC2 comedy series, which finishes its six-week run tomorrow night.

Tom Hollander's Adam Smallbone is such a lovable creation, I'm starting to wish he could find a life outside of this series where, by definition, he's slightly hemmed in by storylines about the business of being an inner-city vicar.

Tonight's episode is written by Coronation Street scribe Jonathan Harvey, and it would have been an ideal opportunity for him to bundle dinky little Adam into a largish picnic hamper and take him back up the M6 to practice vicaring on the streets of Weatherfield.

Tonight sees Adam attempting to spread his wings a little by flirting with the smoky trappings of Roman Catholicism - or, in the words of Nigel his curate, "going a little bit Abramovich".

The occasion is the wedding of a chap called Leon (Colin Salmon) who Adam wants as his new best friend. Lord knows, he's in need of one of them.

Tom Hollander (Rev) interview

Tom Hollander talks about Rev...

Tom Hollander's Rev Adam Smallbone is contemplating the loneliness of the clerical calling in the latest episode of this sprightly comedy. He can't even make friends among his parishioners, he complains, because "I've got to be on at all times. I've got to be nice." A prospective groom provides a temporary escape from his isolation but the Rev's desire to please leads to a plan to provide "the smoky stuff" - burning incense - at his wedding ceremony. Enter Simon McBurney's high camp and very arch archdeacon, at the first whiff of "Latinate choreography".

Tom Hollander: meet the Rev

Tom Hollander's latest role as an inner-city vicar is earning him popular recognition - and the praise of fan Lily Allen. But he's been a hard-working actor ever since his student drama days with Nick Clegg.

Four episodes in and the tone of Rev has definitely got a little darker. Tonight's episode focuses on the sin of envy, specifically Adam's jealousy at a media-savvy rival, Roland Wise (Hugh Bonneville). Cue an appearance on The One Show that doesn't go as Adam might have wished. That's not to say the jokes have been entirely sacrificed. Simon McBurney's Archdeacon Robert, in particular, is a delight: "The chances of promotion in the Church of England are about the same as in the Chinese Army..."

Rev is such a good-hearted, sweet-natured comedy, it feels churlish to wish that it could, somehow, be better. Tom Hollander is a pocket-sized delight as the well-meaning inner-city vicar Adam Smallbone, but the scripts don't give him enough to work with. As a result, Rev is too mild and lacking in comedy backbone. There are still incidental pleasures though, like Nigel the hand-wringingly earnest curate. Hugh Bonneville is good value, too, as an insufferable media-whore of a vicar who prompts a riled Adam to decide that he should have a media career of his own. He starts by posing for cheesy publicity pictures ("Do I look authoritarian but dashing?") and ends with a disastrous appearance on The One Show.

This priest-com is a surprise hit, scoring 2.2 million in the ratings and receiving rave reviews. Rightly so, as it's neatly observed and superbly played. In this fourth episode, our inner-city dog-collared hero Rev Adam Smallbone (the fine Tom Hollander) gets jealous when, in a neat bit of Beeb cross-fertilisation, he hears a rival on Thought for the Day. Adam promptly gets on The One Show himself but his self-publicising plans backfire when he makes an unwise remark about homosexuality.

Time to rev up the laughs

How do you know a sitcom is a BBC 2 sitcom? Usually because it's not that funny. Take Rev, for example. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just, you know, a little lacking in laugh-out-loud moments.

Reverend Josh Zvimba on Rev

Tom Hollander's comedy vicar is a long way from the truth.