Love. Unattainable. Forbidden. Forever. That is the tagline for one of the most avidly watched mini-series ever screened, the story of a Hot Priest's illicit romance... The Thornbirds. Richard Chamberlain was the conflicted cleric, Rachel Ward his soulmate, in this 1983 hit drama, which won six Emmys.
Since then, television has expected its Catholic priests to be hotter than molten lava, smouldering so hard that their cassocks smoke and their halos buckle. Andrew Scott, as the Hot Priest With No Name, fitted the bill perfectly in Fleabag.
So does Paapa Essiedu, as bearded Father David in Falling, smiling like the pullout in a Vatican pin-up calendar. He visits a convent near his Bristol parish to talk to the abbess about potential novices, young women who wanted to become nuns, and gets chatting to Sister Anna (Keeley Hawes) while she makes him a snack of scrambled eggs. She burns her hand on the saucepan, he holds her fingers under the tap, and there is what can only be described as a very definite frisson.
From then on, they cannot stay away from each other. When he visits her vegetable garden, they are flirting like Sid James and Barbara Windsor. 'May I see your cabbages?' he asks. 'Only if you get me really drunk!' she retorts. Ooh, Mother Superior, innit awful?
It is difficult to believe in this sudden passion, not least because they are both such A-list stars. She is the gin-guzzling mum from The Durrells, he is the Home Secretary from The Capture, and in their religious robes they look more like extras in a celebrity edition of Call The Midwife.
Neither mentions the age difference. Paapa is 35. Keeley is 15 years older, but her wimple takes years off her and we are left to assume the generation gap does not exist. By the end of the opening episode, Anna has dashed out of the evening mass and leapt on a bus to find the Hot P and declare her undying devotion to him. This comes as something of a surprise, what with their vows of celibacy, but under his blushes David looks flattered, as though he might well come round to the idea when he gets used to it.
Writer Jack Thorne is best known for his gritty dramas, including Adolescence, but this is sheer Mills & Boon with a rosary. We are expected to believe that no nun is truly married to Christ — she just hasn't met the right priest yet. Why this priest is supposed to be so wonderful is not clear. He is drippy, even spineless: he knows one man in his congregation is beating his wife and his daughter, but he does not feel he can do much about it, apart from quoting Karl Marx to the women. Couldn't he remember any appropriate Bible verses? Perhaps he would be better off leaving the priesthood and becoming a social worker. But Sister Anna probably wouldn't fancy him then.
