The Crush: Tom Hollander

There’s nothing that reduces Crush to a jelly quicker than a good man en crise: the anguished tussles with an unforgiving conscience, the heroically doomed attempts to Do The Right Thing.

If he’s a pocket-sized poppet, it just gets better. So the return of Adam Smallbone, aka Rev, aka Tom Hollander, to the faithless streets of Shoreditch in the third series of the BBC Two comedy, has got us on our knees faster than you can say, ‘Who’s dropped a tenner?’

And let’s face it, it’s come in the nick of time. We’ve spread our bets, Lent-wise, and renounced sugar, alcohol, nicotine, gossip and the Devil and all his works; now, with Easter looming, we’ve tumbled off the path to purity and lie, shivering spiritual wrecks, in need of serious pastoral care. Who better to save us than a vicar who is frequently racked with doubt, permanently beset by temptation and moral dilemma, and who’ll join us in the graveyard for a crafty cig when our resolve falters?

We know he’s recently added to his flock, and must contend with his troublesome parishioners, hopeless sidekick Nigel and that sinister Archdeacon; also, now that he and wife Alex have decided to go forth and multiply, he’s not even going to get a decent kip. But don’t worry, oh brow-furrowed, rumple-cassocked man of God, Crush is here to help you through your dark night of the soul. Forgive us, father: we think we might be about to sin.