All Rev’d Up

So I have been meaning to post some thoughts on the new BBC sitcom, Rev, but was waiting until I had watched the first three episodes to make fair comment.

But two of my friends have beaten me to it. Glen Scrivener highlights the importance of not being too earnest. He reckons the moralism is punctuated by fairly blunt sex gags and fails to deliver any real edge. He also makes a point which I heartily agree with – we must learn to take God very seriously, and ourselves not too seriously.

Stephen Watkinson in a Facebook Note (so you may not be able to read this link if you are not a friend? Not sure how FB works in this context) observes that the writer seems to know more about the Church of England than about God. He also bemoans the caricature of a ‘charismatic’ (in week 2) and the sub-Biblical virtue of doubt (by this I don’t think Stephen is advocating certainty on all things – but surely at the heart of Biblical Christianity are a number of very important things that we can be certain about.

All I would add to this, is that I love the title character’s prayers – which seem conversational and real and not ‘polished’ – which is surely how we should address our Heavenly Father. And there is also a degree of reality about the ‘on call 24/7’ nature of the ‘job’, and the variety of characters the church seems to attract – which is certainly true in every church I have been a part of. And there is some humour that arrives out of this truth.

A bit of a curate’s egg of comedy then?