Rev Star Speaks Of Admiration For Believers

Actress Olivia Colman, who plays the wife of Rev Adam Smallbone in the hit BBC Sitcom Rev, has spoken of her admiration for people of faith, and says she may one day ‘take that step.’

Colman, 37, who has recently starred alongside Meryl Streep in the critically acclaimed ‘The Iron Lady’ told the Guardian that she is happy the show is good PR for the Church.

And she told the newspaper that when the team attempted to do some ‘guerrilla filming’ at the Greenbelt festival they were mobbed by fans of the series.

Speaking to the Guardian about her recent TV and film successes, Colman explained:

"We tried to do some guerrilla filming for the series at the Greenbelt religious festival, but in the end we couldn't use any of the footage because it was like being the Stones. We were mobbed by people saying they loved what we had done with Rev. They are normal human beings, after all, and fed up with constantly being portrayed as starchy."

And she went on to give her own appraisal of why the show is popular with so many people, and why she feels it’s a good advert for the church.

She said: "Adam Smallbone is an everyman: good, kind, worried and troubled. I have enormous admiration for people that do believe. Maybe one day I will take that step."

Rev, which recently completed its second series with a Christmas special, has won fans from across the religious spectrum, but has also attracted criticism from Christians dismayed at the central character’s apparent lack of faith.

Inspired by the life and ministry of a real life Church of England Vicar, Rev centres upon the travails of long suffering priest Adam Smallbone, played by Tom Hollander.

His church, St Saviour in the Marshes is home to an assortment of characters whose personal problems add further layers of complication to Adam’s personal life and ministry.

He and his wife Alex, played by Olivia Colman have recently moved to the inner city parish from a small country church in rural Suffolk.

The ‘warts and all’ comedy portrayal of the parish ministry hasn’t gone down well with everyone, with one correspondent to the Church of England newspaper recently complaining: “some of the lead character’s responses to situations (often aggressive, weak, or undignified) were completely out of step with my understanding of how years in seminary and serving a parish would inform a priest to behave.”

But others have taken the series to their heart, as the cast’s experience at Greenbelt demonstrated.