Rev. (TV series)
| Rev. | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Created by |
Tom Hollander James Wood |
| Written by | Tom Hollander and James Wood |
| Directed by | Peter Cattaneo |
| Starring | Tom Hollander Olivia Colman Steve Evets Miles Jupp Simon McBurney Ellen Thomas Lucy Liemann Jimmy Akingbola Vicki Pepperdine Joanna Scanlan Ben Willbond |
| Narrated by | Tom Hollander |
| Theme music composer | Jonathan Whitehead |
| Opening theme | Remix of "I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray" by Nat King Cole |
| Ending theme | "Hearing The Prayer" |
| Composer(s) | Jonathan Whitehead |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 19 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Matthew Justice and Simon Wilson (series one) Kenton Allen and Tom Hollander (series two) |
| Producer(s) | Kenton Allen (series one) Hannah Pescod (series one and two) Polly Buckle (series three) |
| Location(s) |
Shoreditch, London Hackney, London |
| Running time | 25-30 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Big Talk Productions Handle with Prayer |
| Distributor | BBC Worldwide |
| Release | |
| Original network |
BBC Two BBC HD |
| Picture format |
576i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | 28 June 2010 – 28 April 2014 |
| External links | |
| BBC website | |
Rev. is a British television sitcom produced by Big Talk Productions. The show premiered on BBC Two on 28 June 2010 and ended on 28 April 2014. The show's working titles were The City Vicar and Handle with Prayer. The series revolves around a Church of England priest, played by Tom Hollander, who becomes the vicar of an inner-city London church after leaving a small rural Suffolk parish.
Hollander said: "[w]e wanted to define ourselves in opposition to the cliché of a country vicar, partly because we wanted to depict England as it is now, rather than having a sort of bucolic-y, over the hills and far away, bird-tweeting England – we wanted the complications of the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic inner-city, where everything is much harder."
The Reverend Adam Smallbone is an Anglican priest who has recently moved from a small rural parish to the "socially disunited" St Saviour in the Marshes in Hackney, East London. Unable to turn anyone away from his pastoral care, Smallbone is faced with a series of moral challenges as he balances the needs of genuine believers, people on the streets, and drug addicts, as well as the demands of social climbers using the church to get their children into the best schools.
Adam has an impossibly difficult job being a modern city vicar. His wife Alex, who has her own career as a solicitor to worry about, provides fantastic support for him, seeing through his life as a priest, whilst not being involved with his work. He is also supported by lay reader Nigel, who believes he should be running the church. In supervision is Archdeacon Robert, who puts pressure on Adam to increase the congregation and church income.
Parishioners include Colin, a heavy drinking, unemployable lost soul who is Adam's most devoted parishioner; Adoha, well known for her romantic intentions towards the clergy; and Mick, who is homeless and appears on Adam's doorstep in different situations asking for money.
Interviewed in late April 2014, Tom Hollander has said that he did not know whether there would be a fourth series, and that after the third series "we all want to just pause". He added that "The idea of not doing it any more is sad but also quite attractive, because you wouldn't want for it to ever get worse."
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