With almost no fanfare at all, one of the funniest shows on TV is tittering quietly away to itself. Slick, classy and above all, intelligent… Rev (BBC Two, Monday, 12 July, 10pm) is a comedy waiting to catch you off-guard.

Most sitcoms trade in punching you in the belly and laughing uproariously in your face. If you want subtlety, TV comedy isn’t the place to be right now. It seems that there’s a penchant for bad stereotypes (generally equating to someone doing a working class accent and being a bit fick) or the canned/audience laughter, thereby taking the viewer out of the equation as TV is now able to laugh at its own jokes without your help, thankyouverymuch.

However, like Outnumbered and The Thick of It, there’s a trickle of comedy shows that are steeped in that stagnant air of real life, thrilling in the absurd and the awkward.

Rev, which stars Tom Hollander as the main man, is a real slow burner of a show which reveals itself little by little, tossing out jokes along the way and, oddly (for a grumpy arse like me) I laughed at every single one of them.

Hollander’s character, Adam, of course is a man of the cloth and naturally, an easy way to go for the laughs is to stick him in places and situations that a religious man shouldn’t find himself in. This transpired as a dirty magazine behind his back during a conversation with a Muslim woman and a night in a strip joint.

However, the jokes didn’t feel cheap. Of course, we’ve seen vicars in places of ill-repute before (it is a joke as old as TV itself), but delivered in this way, there was something fresh and funny about it. Instead of giving us the old flustery, this was more weary and browbeaten.

Essentially, the masterstroke of this show is that the characters are all incredibly believable and along with the laughs, you quickly care for Adam and his moral dilemmas.

One beautifully barbed observation cut through the rest though (the rest, generally being a bumbling man faced with a world he just cannot keep up with) is how he enviously looks at a group of Muslims:

“Look how comfortable they are with their religion… it because Islam is so woven into their every day lives… ours is just something you do on a Sunday if you can be bothered.”

Hanging over the whole show like a seething shadow is the brilliant Archdeacon who, let me tell you, is far more terrifying that Len Brennan from Father Ted. He’s a right bastard who can be seen pouring away coffees and generally being the most sarcastic shit you’ll see on TV.

All in all, this show is a wonderful addition to the listings. Quietly hilarious and very smart. More please BBC.