Rev - the Reviews roundup

An outpouring of articles and blogs has greeted the end of Rev., almost enough material for a new series? Here's a few I've read, if there are any good ones missing, please add them in the comments.

James Mumford in the Guardian, 'a secular take on the sacred' that undermines what the church is

really about

Al Barrett from inner city Birmingham, watched 'the Easter morning gathering of the cracked, the broken and the divided' and found it close to home.

Wildgoosechasing found the show affirmed what the church is about, a place where broken people can be honest about their failings

Sam Norton noted how Adam's quest to save the building loomed over the whole series: a question which looms over the whole CofE. It's not without significance that the church where the series was filmed is itself facing bankruptcy after spending £1/2m in the last 2 years simply on maintenance. (Just read about how king Hezekiah had to destroy the statue of a snake Moses had made in the desert. It was made to bring healing, but had become a snare as people had forgotten what it was originally there for, so it was best to break it to pieces. Made me wonder...)

David Robertson: safe to say he's not a fan, the vicar is a social worker 'if God did not exist then Rev would make perfect sense.' "Why is it that every BBC sitcom which features a church has to feature a dying church?" (good point)

Christian Research asked some questions of Christians who'd watched the programme, and found that 63% of viewers would attend a church led by Adam Smallbone

Great summary from Emma of the Easter episode, which truly was superb. 

Irene at eyebelieve on whether Rev was just 'nice' - or whether this is Christian sacrifice in action, going out of your way to welcome the sinner and build bridges. 

Robert Fairclough on the 'sensitivity and realism' of the series. 

Steve Holmes at Fulcrum, comparing and contrasting with Camerons 'Christian Britain'.

The Blog of Kevin has some good posts reflecting on previous series.

Update: Ian Paul has an excellent piece on what Rev says about clergy vulnerability, and notes that there's not much scope for comedy in a growing church. Several links there to other pieces, including Marcus Green's powerful reflections on his own breakdown and how that connected (and didn't) with how Adam was portrayed. 

For myself, I enjoyed it overall, thought the penultimate episode was brilliant, and wasn't quite sure about the final ending. 'You won't let me go apparently, is this what resurrection is?' Um, part of it perhaps, but the final show was more about vocation than resurrection. Whilst this sort of drama requires a small cast of characters in order to work (think Dibley, Father Ted), that means you'll never see a BBC drama on the church with a full building. Sadly, it doesn't look like they're able to give a fair portrayal of evangelicals either, both vignettes in the series (Roland in this one, and the youth church leader in the first series) were unsympathetic. 

Christian Research asked if people would have attended this church, I'd have been interested to know if it made people want to pray more. In the end, what we do as Revs is help people to draw closer to God: homeless, hung-up, paedophiles, pharisees, and all the other normal everyday sinners like ourselves. 

And if nothing else, there's now a great DVD resource available for clergy training.

The gospel according to Rev: vulnerable or just ineffectual?

If Yes Minister had a political agenda, Rev (which is also a wonderful comedy) appears to have its own theological axes to grind.  Smallbone stands in a long line of comically ineffectual Anglican clergy.  It’s not a coincidence that one of the most memorable villains of the first series was a clergyman with a thriving congregation. In fact, there are barely any positive mentions of anyone with the gifts or inclination to help the church to grow.

All too often, the debates within the Church of England polarise into either an unthinking focus on numerical growth or a curious glorification in decline and impotence (of the kind we see in Rev).  It is all too obvious what is wrong with an uncritical theology of success – as if “bums on seats” were more important than faithfulness and sacrifice.  In some parishes, changing demography may well make numerical growth unrealistic – and yet churches may be “present and engaged” in ways that bear a powerful witness to the Kingdom of God. Numerical growth and Kingdom growth are not always the same thing.

However, we must be equally wary of an uncritical theology of failure – which uses the language of “vulnerability” and “powerlessness” to justify structures and practices which have outlived their usefulness.  We must not confuse Christ-like vulnerability with plain, old-fashioned ineffectiveness.  And we need to remember, whenever “bums on seats” or “the numbers game” are criticised, that behind every number (or, indeed, above every “bum”…) is a life which is hopefully being transformed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

read more here. In the light of Good Friday we have to look very hard at any theology which claims that success and strength are fundamental to being an authentic church. And in the light of Easter Sunday we have to look very hard at any theology which suggests that ineffectually doing a few small but nice things in a corner is what constitutes faithful and authentic ministry. 

there are one or two other analyses of Rev. doing the rounds, which are worth putting alongside the programme itself, for example:

Giles Fraser, wants the 'kindly but inert' vicar to show more backbone

Ian Paul wonders about the missing ingredient, if you can call God an ingredient.

Malcolm Stewart at Cultbox "the Church of England is a group of people united in the knowledge that there is always something to apologise for"

Tim Stanley "Self-laceration is the stock-in-trade of the 1960s liberal Christian tradition, and Rev is its fifth gospel"

Third Series of Rev. on the way

The BBC website confirms that filming has begun on the third series of Rev. I'm very pleased.

Rev: Mystery of Greenbelt Footage Solved

Having seen Tom Hollander and the Rev. crew filming around the Greenbelt festival site last  year, many were expecting footage to crop up in the latest series. But where was it? In the end Rev. Adam Smallbone and Alex (Mrs Vicarage) camped in their front room. Olivia Colman reveals why:

The popularity of the BBC's Rev, in which she plays the wife of Tom Hollander's vicar, Adam Smallbone, has brought a new breed of fan. "We tried to do some guerrilla filming for the series at the Greenbelt religious festival, but in the end we couldn't use any of the footage because it was like being the Stones. We were mobbed by people saying they loved what we had done with Rev. They are normal human beings, after all, and fed up with constantly being portrayed as starchy."

Colman adds that, while she is not a believer, she is happy that the show is good PR for the church. "Adam Smallbone is an everyman: good, kind, worried and troubled. I have enormous admiration for people that do believe. Maybe one day I will take that step."

from an interview in the Observer yesterday.

Lesson: if you see a film crew at your favourite Christian festival, avoid them, otherwise you'll be costing someone some valuable free publicity. Calm down everyone, it's only a TV programme.

Update: I'm now wondering why, after just a few hours, this post has already had more hits than the combined totals of last weeks pieces on depression, pro-euthanasia bias at the BBC, and persecution of Christians in the Muslim world. Isn't Greenbelt all about a social conscience? (ducks)

Rev. trailers now up

and you can find them all here. If anyone can tell me how to embed clips from Iplayer into Blogger, that would be very helpful.

update: aha, here goes...



thankyou Banksyboy!

Rev. Series 2

Next Thursday evening, for the first time in weeks, the steps of St. Pauls will be clear of clergy. I've lost count of the number of vicars who've dropped in on the protest, or been hauled onto the radio to comment about it, or found themselves in Facebook campaigns to land one of the now-vacant posts.

Yes, it's the new series of 'Rev.', the BBC comedy starring Tom Hollander as an inner city priest. In a peculiar case of art imitating life, the first episode stars Lord Voldemort as the Bishop of London. If you happen to be involved in an Anglican church meeting next Thursday, rejoice, as the vicar will have at least one eye on finishing for 9pm.

There's an interview with Hollander in this weeks Radio Times, here's a few snippets which caught my eye:

on researching the series "We spent time with vicars and discovered how interesting it was that they sat right in the middle of society, althought everyone think sof them as marginal, because we are a secular society. But the church is still right at the heart of it, with weddings, funerals and schools.
    You can look at what is going on in our lives through the perspective of the priest, because he has access to everything. Also their lives are full of tragi-comic stories and their beleaguered status seems to chime with our feelings about ourselves as a nation. From looking at the Church of England it's not so very far to seeing where we are with ideas about England."

on vicars reactions "People we have met in the Church since have said 'thank you for making me look normal'. Because they're used to being treated as weirdos, the moment they start talking about faith or a belief in God, people start to behave as if they have got the plague."

on his own beliefs "I believe in the idea of God now. Since doing Rev I believe in what the idea of God represents, but I can't say anything more concrete than that. ... since we stopped shooting I look forward to poking my nose in (to a church) without it being work. I went to Brompton Oratory a couple of years ago and watched a Latin mass where they were facing the altar, clouds of incense and all that. It was very powerful. I thought if there was a supernatural presence, I'd find it more convincing that the spoke a language I didn't really understand."

on life "I've certainly got more interested in religion as I've got older, and that's to do with my own awareness of the fragility of my own existence. Life has a way of making us look silly, so you have to think beyond the limits of your own capabilities. A scientist can tell you about stuff that is clearly measurable, but for stuff thats in the realms of hope, fear and speculation you'd be better off with a priest."

If you ring and get the answerphone between 9 and 9.30 next Thursday, you'll know the reason why!

PS todays comment about the Occupy London protest: I heard 3 protesters interviewed on 5 live this morning, and none of them had any concrete policy suggestions. They celebrated the absence of a command structure in the Occupy protests, but that very lack of leadership also makes the message much harder to hear.