This week’s episode. Series 3 episode 5

I watched it last night on i>player

Wow.

Christianity and situation comedy collide, but it nothing like The Vicar of Dibley. Tom Hollander’s Rev, Adam Smallbone, is something darker. The church is a large building in East London in danger of closure.

And it is real, too real for comfort sometimes. The things that happen in the programme are things that happen in churches. Not all in the same place or all in the same time frame, but that is the nature of situation comedy. But it is nevertheless real and believable.

This, the penultimate episode of the series several threads from previous episodes come together. And what we got was a full blown Passion Play. There was betrayal,  a trial, and Colin denies knowing Adam 3 times before the alarm in the chicken takeaway goes off.

There are many more parallels, including the bishop in the role of Pontius Pilate.

A superb episode. I cried.

In the end the church is stripped of its furnishings and closed in darkness.