Father Ted first bounced onto our screens back In 1995, about the inhabitants of the imaginary Irish parish of Craggy Island, and its collection of dysfunctional priests.
Father Ted, seemed, at first, an oddly old-fashioned product for such an adventurous outlet, being concerned as it was with religion. Such sitcoms in the past (All Gas And Gaiters, Oh Brother!, Bless Me, Father and even Dawn French's The Vicar Of Dibley) had all scored with the mainstream public with their gentle humour that lightly poked fun at the church. Father Ted's premise - three priests living and working together on a bleak Irish isle - seemed to suggest similar fare, but nothing could have been further from the truth!
Overseeing these three is the housekeeper, Mrs Doyle, another larger-than-life comic caricature. She seems normal enough at first but can easily slip into the weird zone, maddeningly repeating the same phrase over and over again ('go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on') when attempting the simplest task like finding out if the priests want their tea. Another of Mrs Doyle's unnerving habits is her ability to hugely raise the decibel level of her voice from one end of a sentence to another. Sporting a permanent, prominent cold-sore on her lip, Mrs Doyle seems right at home in this bleak priest hole.
Series One (6) 21 Apr-26 May 1995, Fri 9pm
Series Two (10) 8 Mar-10 May 1996, Fri 9.30pm
Special (70 mins) 24 Dec 1996, Tue 10pm
Series Three ( 13 Mar-1 May 1998, Fri 9.30pm
