|
It’s hell being a vicar
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 Hackney, East London. It’s a
world he has no 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 new moral conflict for our vicar. Everyone
always wants something from Adam – all the time. Even
his supposedly supportive Lay-reader Nigel, a pedantic
careerist with his eye on Adam’s job.
Adam’s door must always be open. From urban
sophisticates with ulterior motives to 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.
Rev is an authentic – albeit highly comic – portrait of
the life of a modern, inner-city vicar. Heavily researched
and supported by anecdotes from a number of working
city vicars and church insiders it lifts the lid on how the
modern church actually functions, and what life is really
like in a dog collar.
Starring
Tom Hollander as Adam (
In The Loop, Pirates of The Caribbean)
Olivia Colman as Alex (
Peep Show, Hot Fuzz, Beautiful People)
Steve Evets as Colin (
Looking For Eric, Brighton Rock)
Simon McBurney as Archdeacon (
The Last King of Scotland, Bright Young Things)
A Big Talk production for BBC
DURATION
12 x 30'
|
