What A Find

This was lurking, positively lurking, in a binful of cut-price DVDs in a charity shop in Guildford, just waiting for me to come along. I remember the fuss about Popetown when it first came out. Actually I don't, strictly, what I remember is the article in The Guardian's media section at the time reporting on the fuss; the fuss itself was a different matter. I occasionally found my mind turning to it over subsequent years, and usually got the impression hardly anyone else knew it had existed. Coming across this was a complete surprise.

It only cost a pound, which was just as well. 'The banned TV series they didn't want you to see!' enthuses the cover; one episode is enough to make the point that 'they' had your interests very much at heart. It does rather make Father Ted look like it was written by Franz Kafka. The 'Ted' figure in Popetown, Fr Nicholas the Pope's handler, isn't normal enough to contrast with the lunatic figures around him, who are either impossibly ludicrous (the Pope) or too stereotypical to be amusing (the moneygrabbing cardinals). It may just be that the jokes aren't funny enough, though.

Not worth anyone banning, is my opinion. Shame, because the opening (live action) sequence of the desperate-to-please young priest doing animal impressions in a secondary school is actually rather fine.