More TV Vicar? Christians on the Telly: The Good, the Bad and the Quirky

Bryony Taylor analyses the BAFTA award winning sitcom Rev. and its portrayal of Christians and the Church ...

Perhaps the greatest revolution in the depiction of on screen Christians has been in the Bafta award winning BBC sitcom Rev. The Revd Adam Smallbone is a kind of British anti-hero. He constantly fails to carry out his ideas, he smokes and hangs out regularly with local down-and out Colin, he can’t stop the unwanted advances of randy parishioner Adoha, fails to flirt successfully with the attractive head teacher at the local C of E school and he never satisfies the exacting requirements of the machiavellian Archdeacon Robert. A mass of contradictions, in some respects Revd Adam Smallbone is a walking disaster. And that’s why we love him. He encapsulates everything we love in a character – not arrogant, well-meaning, tries hard and ultimately very flawed, Adam Smallbone is truly a vicar who is ‘one of us’. Whenever he gets something right, it is despite himself. In this the writers have encapsulated very well what it is to be a Christian – despite not being Christians themselves.

Rev. updated the church-based sitcom from the now archaic seeming 1960s comedy All Gas and Gaiters in the same way Armando Iannucci updated political comedy Yes Minister with The Thick of It. Like The Thick of It, Rev. was created in consultation with real insiders – Revd Richard Coles among them. The result is a smoking, swearing vicar with a successful lawyer wife and an active sex life – exploding people’s perceptions of what the clergy are like.

People perceive the clergy a little like they do their school teachers. As a child it was always a shock to see one’s teacher doing something ordinary like shopping – surely they lived in the school? In the same way people seem not to grow up about their view of the clergy – they assume that they don’t have a life outside the wearing of funny frocks and intoning of boring prayers. This is what makes it so funny in the first episode of Rev. when Adam finally can’t turn the other cheek any more with the rude builders who catcall him: he rips off his dog collar and shouts ‘Fuck off!’ – and we on our sofas cheer and breathe a sigh of relief: ‘He is human after all.’

Rev. has achieved that rare accolade of public and church popularity – previously enjoyed by All Gas and Gaiters in the 1960s. Rev. watching parties sprang up in theological colleges up and down the country while the national press gave it rave reviews.

Revved up

One of the curious things about the times in which we are living is that where The Vicar of Dibley in its heyday attracted an audience of 15 million viewers, popular sitcom Rev. attracted an average audience of just 2 million in 2014. Although the audience figures for television are much smaller in this current age of multiple channels (as opposed to the 4 channels I grew up with) the commentariat is huge! In the 1990s one would look to a television critic in a broadsheet to get some opinion on a programme. Now, everyone is a critic. Thousands of tweets and many blog posts and articles in the mainstream media were written in response to Rev. during the third series, which aired in 2014.

Television is a much more central part of our culture in our current times than it was in the past. It is watched perhaps by smaller audiences but in an interesting contrast it is commented upon much more as an art form – in a similar way in which critics have always written about films, theatre and music. Given the outburst of interest in, and comment on, Rev. I was intrigued to see what previous generations thought of such influential church based comedies as 1960s classic All Gas and Gaiters and The Vicar of Dibley in the 1990s, so I did a search of the archive of the Church Times. In the entire archive (which goes back to 1863) I found only 14 articles referring to The Vicar of Dibley – most of which were small paragraphs in the television reviews – and 20 articles referring to All Gas and Gaiters, half of which were published since 2010.

It seems that the previous generation deemed television programmes to be trivial and not worthy of column inches in a respectable newspaper such as the Church Times, whereas now, everyone has an opinion on it. In contrast, a search of the archive for articles on Rev. (which has only aired since 2010) threw up 15 articles – most of which were features. People today view television as a true art form. The birth of the DVD box set has invited more analysis of programmes and more niche fan clubs than ever – couple this with the ease of publishing your own views on social media and suddenly everyone and their dog is talking about it!

The vast majority of comments about Rev. during the third series came not from the general public – who simply enjoyed watching a well-made, well-acted comedy drama – but from Christians and clergy. Any programme which focuses on its own self-contained world (like the Church of England) is going to attract comment from people of that world – and now, with easy reach of twitter via our smartphones, the airwaves buzzed, particularly during the

slightly edgier third series which dealt with such topics as gay marriage and paedophilia.

With so much comment flying around, the Christian Research Network surveyed 1,943 practising Christians about their views on Rev. – 65% of them had watched the programme (unsurprisingly, clergy were 30% more likely to have watched it21). Just as my friend Revd Alice watched The Vicar of Dibley while at theological college in the 1990s, I myself watched Rev. together with fellow ordinands (trainee priests) at my college. What I think is intriguing is that I first watched Rev. just as I was beginning to explore the possibility of ordination: so I was watching it as a lay person.

I loved it, I found it hilarious and moving and quite a helpful look into what the life of an ordained minister might be like (particularly in the inner city). Amazingly, it didn’t put me

off. Watching it now, knowing that I will be in the same role as Revd Adam Smallbone, does feel qualitatively different. It’s not that I enjoy watching it any less, it’s more that I laugh at different things. The excellent research and ‘insider knowledge’ is evident, but also I hide behind a cushion a bit more. It is a bit close to home. I think for some clergy, Rev. has operated as a bit of a therapy session – naming the challenges and difficulties of ministry: ‘Lord, you didn’t call me to be an accountant.’ For others, it has been just too close to home – I know of some who simply can’t bring themselves to watch it because it is ‘too real’. Some have been angry with it, either irritated with Adam Smallbone’s character or annoyed at the lack of reference to God in the programme:

‘The BBC might like a pathetic, wimpy vicar who swears like a trooper and has the same values as the dominant elites and mobs of our culture. But I prefer a vicar of Christ.’

As with any controversial programme, opinion is divided. Television does shape people’s views – earlier I explored the impact of The Vicar of Dibley on views of women’s ministry. Some see the programme Rev. as perpetuating the idea of the decline of the church in England. James Mumford wrote a comment piece in the Guardian declaring:

‘You love Rev. I love Rev. Everyone loves Rev. That’s why the hit BBC comedy is so pernicious.’

Damning praise indeed! Mumford sees Rev. as insidiously perpetuating the idea of the church being in terminal decline. When asked to comment on the programme, the

Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, felt he had to qualify what he said:

‘The show amusingly depicts some of the challenges facing clergy up and down the country. But while it’s great entertainment, it doesn’t truly tell the whole story. I have a friend who runs a growing church in Reading city centre, filled with young people with no church background; I have another friend who has had to plan two new churches because his congregation is

bursting at the seams. Other churches have few people but great impact, again with visionary and inspiring leadership. As with all of life, the picture is complex, but I see plenty of struggle and plenty of grounds for celebration. Therefore, while Rev. is great viewing, it

doesn’t depress me quite as much as you might think!’

Most of the discomfort with Rev. comes from evangelicals in the Church of England. This is hardly surprising given that the Adam Smallbone character is depicted as a liberal catholic (i.e. more high church) and the consultants for the programme are from that part of the church spectrum. Indeed, in the first series, the ‘trendy’ evangelical HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton) style of church is mercilessly lampooned when a local vicar borrows Adam’s church for a while and they install a smoothie bar and sound system.

Where some decry the lack of God’s involvement in Rev., Julia Raeside writing in the Guardian enjoyed its lack of cynicism about belief:

‘Just when it seemed comedy went increasingly hand-in-hand with atheism, along came this contemporary sitcom which refuses to discount the possibility of god/God. Thank the Lord, because I can’t think of a comedy since The Vicar of Dibley in which the protagonist has been allowed to believe in God without cynicism. Adam talks to “him” in a series of Peep Show-style voiceovers that don’t strain to be ideological. And when he does seem to be losing his faith (at the end of last year’s Christmas special), it only further highlights

his humanity.’

Rev. has gone a long way towards demonstrating that priests are ordinary, fallible human beings. This has been a source of some fascination to those outside the church – the programme provides a Wizard of Oz-like peep behind the curtain to a strange world.

Often, when a programme containing a focus on faith becomes popular, Christians place a huge burden on that programme which can be completely unreasonable. James Mumford writes:

‘From the outset, Rev.’s operating assumption is that faith is individual. The Rev Smallbone’s prayer monologues are purely personal. Faith is not something held in common. Nor is it transformative. Which is, rightly or wrongly, what people of faith think it is. Perhaps the show’s most wonderful character, the drug addict Colin, is a parishioner Adam is genuinely friends with. But there’s never a question of faith freeing him from addiction.’

What Mumford fails to understand is that Rev. is not a documentary about the church, it is a comedy set in a church. He’s expecting the comedy to do something for which it was never written in the first place. For comedy to work there needs to be a series of characters who don’t change very much and who respond in funny ways to different scenarios. It is odd that Mumford seems to think that the faith depicted in Rev. is individual, when the show revolves

around a small group of parishioners who come together regularly to express their faith. As for the complaint that Colin is not freed from his addiction by his faith – first, his faith is clearly a huge part of his life, he continues to attend church, and, in the final episode of series 3 we hear his own heartfelt prayers to God. Second, if Colin were completely freed of his addiction, then his character would have to change – which the rules of sitcom simply wouldn’t allow.

I asked my friend Revd Kate Bruce who her favourite Christian character on television was; she responded ‘Colin’. I laughed, and then I thought about it and realised, yes, Colin is a great Christian character with a real faith – a rare thing to see on television. How many vicars do you know who have said, ‘Yeah, we’ve got a Colin in our congregation’?

Mumford goes on to suggest that Rev. would be more interesting if it contained an actual miracle – such as someone being unexpectedly healed after Adam prays for her. He seems to think this would be more of an ‘insider view’ of the church. I can’t give a better response to this critique than Jem Bloomfield’s friend: ‘Dr Mumford’s paradigmatic example of a Christian version of Rev. seems to involve parlour trick-style miracles. That’s strange.’

When the Only Fools and Horses writers wrote an episode with Del Boy and Rodney finally becoming millionaires it destroyed the whole premise of the show and it was not long before they had to make them penniless again to reinstate the beloved sitcom in the hearts of the nation. Something very similar would have happened to Rev. had the miracle of Colin being freed of addiction occurred or a healing taken place in the congregation. The beauty of the programme is in Adam’s continued service to his community despite not ever really seeing any tangible results. Rev., then, very much represents the ‘insider view’ that Mumford is calling for, just, unfortunately, not his type of insider!

Because the detail in Rev. is so accurate, because it is a ‘squirmfest’ as Revd Stephen Cherry put it, people have thought it is genuinely portraying the state of the Church of England today. This is like expecting Holby City to be representative of life in the NHS or what happens to a single family on EastEnders to be the norm for everybody. Although it is a side-effect of a good programme that it feels accurate, it is not the point of Rev. The point of Rev. is to be a great comedy drama – something that was recognised when it was awarded a Bafta in 2011. It remains to be seen what kind of impact the programme might have on views of the Church of England in the country at large. My suspicion is that most of the programme’s Christian critics think that the general public care much more than they do in reality about the state of the Church of England today.

This is an excerpt from More TV Vicar? Christians on the Telly: The Good, the Bad and the Quirky by Bryony Taylor, available now in paperback and eBook priced £9.99.