Tom Hollander

Crack-addicted squirrels and a brilliant - and rather attractive - new curate, Abi (Amanda Hale), are the latest trials to test the faith of the Rev Adam Smallbone (Tom Hollander) of St Saviour's, East London, in this lovably gentle comedy. Adam's initial enthusiasm at the prospect of someone to cover his weekends off soon gives way to jealousy, self-doubt and resentment when he realises how much better Abi is at his job. Surprisingly, Colin's (Steve Evets) chemical-based solution doesn't help.

While most of the TV listings and reviews will be concerned about a certain sitcom written by someone with too many awards on his mantelpiece, it's easy to overlook that another sitcom was also returning just before it.

The second series of Rev. began this week (I should point out that the full stop after Rev. is not out of some inflated sense of the need to stick to the rules grammar of punctuation, but because that's what it's actually called in the show's opening credits), with Tom Hollander returning as the Reverend Adam Smallbone. How fitting it is in this case for the vicar to be named after the first male sinner, especially as the opening scenes see him yawning while talking to God in his head and admitting he's stashed booze away while on a retreat - and not a holiday.

In this episode Adam accidentally stops a robber, resulting in inaccurate praise for him and getting nominated for a Pride of Britain Award. The show is clever in the way it makes Adam come to terms with his moral dilemmas, and about whether or not he should accept this honour.

However, I have to admit being slightly uncomfortable about watching Rev., sometimes because I don't want to see all these moral dilemmas played out in a sitcom. What I want to see is something funnier. But it's probably mainly because I was risen Catholic, and so to me the world of St. Saviour's in the Marshes has always been a bit alien. It's also probably why I preferred Father Ted to The Vicar of Dibley.

Still, when it gets it right, Rev. is an entertaining show and worth a watch.

Ralph Fiennes played the Bishop of London in the knockout opening of the wildly welcome return of Rev. Apparently real revs love Rev, as it makes them seem human. Tom Hollander again did just that, his face a perfect ever-changing landscape of very human conceits and contradictions and petty frustrations as he tries to be good. His Adam Smallbone struggled this week with the ethics of accepting a "hero" award for something he hadn't... exactly... done. At all. You truly felt for him; the church, his community, especially his wife, who wanted a new frock, were throatily urging him on, against his Christian (or simply human) instincts.

Watching his face as he was gently, subtly, quietly talked out of acceptance at the end by wise Bishop Fiennes was like watching an age-old battle, a Greek tragicomedy, the conflict between ego and honesty. Some of this is really beautiful. Other bits are just wise, funny, modern. Attempting to gee up sullen inner-city kids for a trip to the seaside, Adam asks, with eager innocence: "Now... how many of you have seen a cow?" All hands, of course, rise, in a chorus of boredom. Adam is relatively unfazed, but then furiously... fazed... at the paperwork, the CRB and health and safety forms needed to take to the seaside a bunch of children who virulently don't want to go. This is lovely.

One of the pleasures of Rev (Thursday, BBC Two) is that its characters' foibles seem to have taken root quite naturally rather than being glued on in a scriptwriters' conference. Tom Hollander's Adam Smallbone may be hapless, but his haplessness comes in part from his constant wavering between conviction and doubt. Hailed as the "Kung-Fu Vicar" after an unheroic misunderstanding, Smallbone is advised to tell the truth by the Bishop of London (a balefully creepy Ralph Fiennes) - "You're going to have to tell the truth and that's when your courage will really be shown."

Sanctimonious piffle on the one hand, yet nothing in Rev is quite as simple as that. Smallbone, did, reluctantly, tell the truth, and was surprised to find himself feeling enriched as a result. This may not have lasted long, and flocks of unchristian thoughts may have come beating in its wake - but that, surely, is exactly how these things work.

Rev returns tonight on BBC 2

At long last, it's time for everyone in the UK to return to the inner-city world of St Saviour's in East London beginning tonight, Thursday, 10 November at 2100 on BBC2. Reverend Adam Smallbone (Tom Hollander) is back in Rev, along with Alex, his long-suffering solicitor wife, Colin, Mick and the entire motley congregation en tow for a sophomore season of the hit comedy.

As Rev returns for a second series, gentle, long-suffering vicar Adam Smallbone is on retreat, savouring moments of silent contemplation and spiritual solace. But the peace is broken with the arrival of boorish fellow cleric Roland Wise (Hugh Bonneville) who isn't getting into the spirit of the thing: brandishing a brace of DVD boxed sets he announces: "I've got The History of Christianity or The Killing!".

As Rev, which had a devoted following AND won a Bafta last year, could never be accused of shouting its presence, this is as loud as it gets as sweet Adam (wonderful Tom Hollander) quietly puzzles his way through life. And he has a lot of thinking to do when he is hailed a hero after foiling a bag snatch. Except he didn't. Cue some wise words from his bishop (a lovely guest appearance from An International Star).

Praise the Lord for the return of Rev

Tom Hollander's brilliant vicar and a fine supporting cast return to BBC2 for another series of the excellent comedy.

Video: Tom Hollander's religious research for Rev

Tom Hollander is to star in a second series of Rev, a series he co-created with writer James Woods.

Hollander told BBC Breakfast about his research for the role of Reverend Adam Smallbone.

Rev will be broadcast on Thursday 10 November, 9pm, BBC Two.

Tom Hollander on the return of Rev: interview

The actor Tom Hollander tells how his C of E sitcom on BBC Two wowed the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In the big-name ya-boo-sucks stakes, Life's Too Short will probably prove unsurpassable. Rev, however, was much funnier. Anchored around an impeccably turned performance from Tom Hollander as the vicar whose conscience and the real world don't get on, there is a timeless quality to this series.

This may be because the Rev Smallbone's struggle with himself and the world is essentially the struggle faced by folk of faith for all eternity; theologians call it theodicy and take it very seriously: writer James Wood has worked out that precisely because it is usually taken so seriously, it can also be very funny. Rev's standard mode is to undercut moments of seriousness, sublimity or sentiment with a comic sucker punch. The Rev's internal monologue last night (trying to think Holy Thoughts while being unable to stop himself wondering whether it would be that weird-tasting cauliflower cheese for lunch) was a classic example.

The plot was old-school sitcom with Smallbone emerging from last series's crisis of faith to foil a mugger. He had merely bumped into him but this spiralled into a Pride of Britain award nomination for the "Kung-Fu Vicar", which prompted the intervention from Lord Voldemort, a crisis of conscience and so on. People talk about what Rev has done for the Church. But it has also done much to prove that sitcoms can be warm-hearted, current, and still make you gag on your risotto with laughter.