This is the real Fr Ted

Joe Jenkins previews a new `docu-soap' on the life of priests SrF1'ING, speaking quietly and measuredly in his church, the 46-year-old priest looks into the television camera and says: "Some of the worst people I know are members of congregations I've worked in."
This is, thankfully, the most disturbing priestly confession aired in St Mary Margaret's (ITV, begins 31 May), a new fly-on-the-wall series about a Liverpool parish. It is not, however, the most disturbing part of Sunday's opening episode. Granada TV, who made the series, have billed it as a "docu-soap" and for good reason: as well as following the everyday efforts of two priests and their assistants as they cater for the spiritual and pastoral needs of a 6,500-strong parish, we are also privy to a murder case a scouse Hamlet with the young prince played by a brave young woman, Lisa, who is supported by her husband and by the parish priest Fr Gerry Proctor, who drives the young couple to and from court every day of the trial and sits with them through it.
To call this "soap" is to trivialise the discovery by Lisa that her mother and uncle are suspected of stabbing and killing her father when he finds out about their love affair. It is powerful television.
Life in the presbytery is not all sweetness and light. Fr Proctor, a focused, exacting workaholic, does not always see eyeto-eye with his assistant, the recently-ordained and endearing Fr Grant Maddock (whose candid account of dumping a girlfriend to study for the priest hood at 16 astounds a class of teenage boys). Fr Maddock wears a clerical collar, which, he says, identifies him as a priest and is an act of "witness" in a society where God's presence needs little reinforcement.
Fr Proctor, once a missionary in Latin America, wears an open shirt. He is also a strict vegetarian, while the younger priest likes his meat. But any tension that may arise as the priests and their supporting cast of nun administrators and secretarial and household staff go about their business is subsumed by the end result: a committed and irreplaceable team effort to serve the members of the parish. Inevitably, comparisons have been made with Father Ted, but the reality of life in an inner city parish is no laughing matter (the only similarity between this and the hit comedy series is that the parish secretary's surname is Doyle). As the series unfolds, St Mary Margaret's will become essential viewing for clergy and the rest of us alike, keen to a have a nosey at the inside workings of our own parish.
Unlike other subjects in the Driving School genre, in agreeing to take part in the programme, the two priests have performed a service to their calling, and may even have redressed some of the secular ridicule for a priesthood that often comes under fire, deservingly and undeservingly. This series will do more for the Church in this country than a score of Communications Sundays.