Rev. is a British television sitcom created by Tom Hollander and James Wood and produced by Big Talk Productions which revolves around a Church of England priest who becomes the vicar of an inner-city London church after leaving a small rural Suffolk parish.
The series premiered in the UK on BBC Two on 28 June, 2010.
Rev. premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC Entertainment channel on Tuesday 25 October 2011, at 21h00. See "Seasons" below for seasonal broadcast dates and times.
Season 2 premiered on BBC Entertainment on Tuesday 8 January 2013, at 22h00. New episodes broadcast weekly. There are seven episodes in the second season.
Synopsis
Rev. is a comedy about a vicar running a modern inner-city church, with a reluctant wife and a depleted, motley congregation.
Meet the Rev. Adam Smallbone. He's a Church of England Vicar, newly promoted from a sleepy rural parish to the busy, inner-city world of St Saviour's in East London. It's a world he has little experience of. And it shows. It really shows.
It is an impossibly difficult job being a good, modern, city vicar. And, equally, it's a very hard job being married to one.
Alex – Adam's long-suffering wife – does her best to support him, but she's got her own career as a solicitor to worry about. And she is no one's idea of a conventional vicar's wife.
Anybody can and does come into St Saviour's – and into Adam's life. From scheming MPs trying to educate their children on the cheap to Colin, a heavy drinking, unemployable lost soul who is Adam's most devoted parishioner.
Then there's Mick, the local crackhead in need of £20 to visit his 'dying mother' in Southend... She's died three times in the last 12 months.
Every day throws up a moral conflict for our vicar. Adam's door must always be open to urban sophisticates with ulterior motives, the chronically lonely, the lost, the homeless, the poor and the insane.
All are welcome at St Saviour's and Adam can't turn any of them away. Even if they're clearly lying, mad or just very annoying.
In addition to caring for his flock Adam has to worry about the financial burden of running a huge, decaying building – with a smashed stained glass window – and a dwindling congregation.
He has to contend with hopeless volunteers, ambitious church rivals, the sinister attentions of the Archdeacon and the romantic attentions of Adoha, a renowned 'cassock-chaser' and church regular.
Even his supposedly supportive Lay Reader Nigel is a pedantic careerist who thinks he should be running the place himself.
Seasons
Series exclusive to BBC Entertainment
Season 1 (6 episodes)
Premiere: 25 October 2011 | Finale: 8 November 2011 | Tuesdays, 21h00 (double bill)
Season 2 (7 episodes)
Premiere: 8 January 2013 | Finale: 19 February 2013 | Tuesdays, 22h00