Anglican vicars may often be portrayed as bland, benign and bumbling, but the Archbishop of Canterbury is missing something
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has complained in a speech of the injustice of TV depictions of clergy. “They are portrayed as rogues or idiots,” he said. “The reality is very different – it is actually of hard-working, normal people, caring deeply about what they do and working all the hours there are to do it.”
It is true that Jane Austen’s Mr Collins – whose preposterously pompous letters provide endless entertainment in Pride and Prejudice – has cast a long fictional shadow. Anglican clergy portrayed on screen have often been, it is undeniable, figures of (hugely benign) fun, whether Dawn French’s Vicar of Dibley or Rowan Atkinson’s nervous, inept priest in Four Weddings and a Funeral.