I didn’t have high hopes for this show. Don’t get me wrong, I was always going to watch it. If you pay your license fee you might as well check in with the BBC whenever it produces a new comedy to see where your non-David-Attenborough money is being spent.

In my head I figured it would be something like the Vicar of Dibley. As in, the main character may be a priest but the show is really about ‘finding love’ or ‘being a single professional woman’ or something.

Rev isn’t like that. Rev is actually about an Anglican priest in a crumbling, mostly empty inner-city London parish.

He prays, he questions his faith, he has to deal with where religion sits in a modern world, he’s terrified that he’s just a relic of a bygone era.

It’s lovely. It’s sweet. It’s also really funny.

What genuinely surprised me was that the show didn’t shrink away from the fact that the main character (usually) has a deep faith in a Creator. And faith in that wonderfully soft, Anglican way. Adam doesn’t believe in the Bible as a literal revelation but -in his words- “our best attempt at answering some very difficult and important questions.”

Here’s a clip from the first episode. To set it up, one Sunday Adam is surprised to find that his congregation swells from around 11 people to a packed church. He discovers this is due to the impact church attendance has on the entry criteria for a very good, over-subscribed school next door.

Clip number two is the inevitable clash (you always knew it was coming) between the traditionally English view of worship and some decidedly more modern, North American-inspired visions of it. But it also includes the amazing Olivia Colman as Adam’s wife. She’s one of my favourite British actresses.

The last one is Adam doing his school thing. I vaguely remember religious education classes descending into similar states of anarchy. With less hilarious results, of course.

If you’re in the UK, the entire series is still available on BBC iPlayer. If you’re outside the UK, keep an eye out for it. BBC Worldwide tends to be very successful in flogging off comedy -at least to North American and Australasian territories.

Otherwise keep an eye out for it on Netflix. I’m definitely not suggesting you look for it on easily searchable torrent sites. As previously discussed, that would be irresponsible.

Definitely worth seeking out. I haven’t seen comedy and religious belief mixed so well together without the religious component descending into ridicule for quite some time. Possibly ever.

Can’t wait for the next series.