The writer of Rev has admitted there will not be a third series of the award-winning BBC2 sitcom this year because the cast, including Tom Hollander and Olivia Colman, are “too bloody successful”.
So far the BBC has made two series and a Christmas special, and has attracted a range of impressive guest stars including Ralph Fiennes, Richard E Grant, Hugh Bonneville, Geoffrey Palmer, James Purefoy and the veteran actor Sylvia Syms.
James Wood, the co-creator with Hollander of the comedy about a London inner-city vicar, told MediaGuardian: “The cast are too bloody successful.”
Wood said he was “cautiously optimistic” about getting the cast together in 2013 but this could not be guaranteed.
“The other thing of course we need to do is to make sure that we maintain the same standards as with the other two series,” Wood added. He said he was currently working out whether a third series was creatively feasible as well.
Wood said it has proved very difficult to assemble the comedy’s ensemble cast, led by Hollander who plays the vicar Adam Smallbone. Hollander is due to make two films this year, beginning with a role in Fiennes’s film about Charles Dickens’s mistress, Nelly Ternan.
The supporting cast of Rev is also in demand. Colman, who plays the vicar’s wife, Alex, is currently in a West End production of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and has many other commitments including her roles in the Channel 4 comedy Peep Show and the BBC Olympic sitcom Twenty Twelve.
Other cast members include Simon McBurney, who plays Archdeacon Robert, but who spends a large part of his professional life running the experimental theatre company Complicité.
The BBC admitted that a new series of Rev will not be made this year and was unable to confirm whether it will be returning in 2013.
“BBC2 is very keen for Rev to return and we are currently discussing the possibility of a third series with [the producers] Big Talk Productions,” the BBC said in a statement.
Source: guardian.co.uk – Rev writer admits the show won’t return this year
