Sitcom was an unusual form for these clerical
stories to take. If you didn't know, and heard that a series of memoirs about
the life of a novice Catholic curate in a suburban London parish 30 years ago
were being adapted for television, you might assume that they would be a
nostalgic family drama programme, perhaps along the lines of All Creatures
Great & Small on Sunday evenings. But Peter
de Rosa, the books' author, thought that his experiences would work well as a sitcom, and was
trusted enough to be granted his wish. All 21 episodes are by De Rosa, who
never wrote anything else for television, and the sense of an individual
authorial voice speaking from experience was one of Bless Me Father's
two great strengths (along with the casting, of course)
This final episode certainly has enough material and conflict in it to sustain
a 50 minute drama. It's the story of a mixed marriage between a Rabbi's son and
a Catholic orphan girl, which both religions attempt to block (nice to see
Cyril Shaps as the rabbi).
The implications of the story are disheartening in places, with some
unhappiness due for the couple whichever decision they make. Both the girl's
parents were killed in the war we are told (in the kind of aside rarely heard
in an LWT sitcom) and rejecting the chance of a loving marriage would break her
heart again, but the couple face estrangement from both of their faiths if they
do marry.
Most viewers' sympathies would be towards the young couple marrying, and the
script deftly plays with this, with the greatest laughs coming from the holy
men's appalled reactions when the couple threaten to convert to Anglicanism.
But it's to the script's credit that it doesn't skirt around the problems that
the couple will face, and accomplishes a happy ending that's harmonious without
being sentimental. And a marriage is a great way to end the series as a whole,
too, part of a British literary and theatrical comic tradition that goes back
centuries.
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