Rev.

Who knew a TV sitcom could be so profound?

Not sure how they do it. Great intelligence, hard work and creativity, I guess.

Ingredients of its success.... well, some of them:

• Tom Hollander's wonderfully, gently expressive face and voice
• a supporting cast of characters who each portray somebody I have met, somebody who is utterly ridiculous, somebody the situation really wouldn't be the same without and somebody fantastically amusing all rolled into one
• research so thorough that every episode in the last series (and so far in this second series) closely resembles a situation I, as a lifelong churchgoer, have been part of or witnessed
• attention to detail balanced so carefully with an understanding of 'everyman' that specialist churchy knowledge (that new curate was Lucy Winkett!) complements characters and scenarios with which anyone can identify
• a depiction of Christianity / churchmanship that is at once authentic, beautiful, laughable and flawed. In other words, accurate.

One priest apparently told writer James Woods that the show isn't a comedy but a documentary. I think it's both. Hurrah for Rev Adam Smallbone, his most excellent wife and his dysfunctional / lovely congregation.