"The Passion of Saint Tibulus" is the third episode of the first series of the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
sitcom
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...
''
Father Ted
''Father Ted'' is a sitcom created by Irish writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews and produced by British production company Hat Trick Productions for Channel 4. It aired over three series from 21 April 1995 until 1 May 1998, including ...
''. Originally airing in 1995, the episode was rebroadcast on BBC2 in 2008 in tribute to
Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Howard Perkins (22 February 1953 – 29 August 2008) was a British comedy producer, writer and performer. Best known as the BBC head of comedy (1995–2001), he produced the first two radio series of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galax ...
.
Synopsis
Ted hosts
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
's Father Hernandez at the Craggy Island Parochial House who, seeing
Mrs Doyle, confesses he sometimes finds a life of
celibacy difficult, and Ted mentions
Bishop Brennan, who is rumoured to have a son who lives in America.
Bishop Brennan, after phoning Craggy Island Fathers to say he is coming over, arrives the next day and orders Ted and
Dougal to protest against the showing of ''The Passion of Saint Tibulus'' at the Craggy Island theatre: the film, condemned as blasphemous, is banned by
His Holiness from playing nearly anywhere else, but it is being shown on Craggy Island due to an odd loophole. Brennan wants the Fathers to show the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
has made a stand on it; he considers this matter of utmost importance as he had to be recalled from his holiday in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
Ted and Dougal go to the cinema to find only a couple of people there, one of whom swiftly leaves after being told by Michael, the manager that the film is subtitled; she prefers
dubs instead. The priests make a
gentlemen's agreement with Michael to watch the film once and then peacefully protest at it so that Michael can throw them out, making it look like a fuss. They return to the parochial house for the night and discuss the film, agreeing it was difficult to understand and sexually explicit.
The next morning, Bishop Brennan returns to the parochial house, forcefully crashing through the front door. He forces Ted and Dougal to start early that day on their protest, although the cinema wasn't yet open. They half-heartedly stand around the cinema, waving placards and proclaiming "Down with this sort of thing" (Ted) and "Careful now" (Dougal). Ted instructs Dougal to buy handcuffs so they can chain themselves to the railings outside the cinema, hoping that will increase attention. However, they find their protests have the opposite effect: people are drawn in to see the film.
Meanwhile, Bishop Brennan comes into the parochial house in search of his travel bag and asks
Jack
Jack may refer to:
Places
* Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA
People and fictional characters
* Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
why he is not with the other priests for the protest (to which Jack responds, to Bishop Brennan's anger, by shouting "Feck off!"). The bishop then asks if he has seen his travel bag, asking Jack to bring it back if he finds it. After Bishop Brennan leaves, Jack takes the bag out of hiding and looks inside it. Among what he finds are the bishop’s passport (which he throws away), a VHS camcorder containing a "Holiday '95 California" video cassette, which Jack takes from the camcorder and puts in his jacket, and a bottle of
Jack Daniel's
Jack Daniel's is a brand of Tennessee whiskey. It is produced in Lynchburg, Tennessee, by the Jack Daniel Distillery, which has been owned by the Brown–Forman Corporation since 1956.
Packaged in square bottles, Jack Daniel's "Black Label" ...
whiskey, which he gleefully takes.
As evening comes, Michael tells Ted ''The Passion of Saint Tibulus'' has been more successful for him than even ''
Jurassic Park''. Ted, by now fed up, decides to give up his protest and asks Dougal to hand him the handcuff keys so he can release himself. He find that Dougal does not have any keys and as the pair have to remain handcuffed to the railing until a method of freeing themselves comes, they are forced to carry it home with them.
Back at the house, Bishop Brennan scolds the priests for causing the film to become so popular that people are arriving from all over
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and "even from
Gdańsk" to see it. He then shows them a globe and explains his plans to reassign them all to locations worse than Craggy Island as punishment. Noticing Father Jack not paying attention, he ignores Ted's warning not to wake him ("I wouldn't do that if I were you") - Jack punches him in the face. After the bishop departs, Ted and Dougal lament their fate, but Jack shows them the video cassette which contains film of the bishop in California with his secret mistress and his son. Ted realises he can use this tape for blackmail and to force the bishop to change his mind. The priests gleefully decide to watch the tape a few more times.
Production
The episode's central theme is ineffectual protest. The plot of the Church's opposition to a blasphemous film was inspired by the reaction to several real-life films, including ''
The Last Temptation of Christ'', ''
Sebastiane
''Sebastiane'' is a 1976 Latin-language British historical film directed by Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress and written by Jarman, Humfress and James Whaley. It portrays the events of the life of Saint Sebastian, including his iconic martyrdom by ...
'', ''
Hail Mary
The Hail Mary ( la, Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary's ...
'' and ''
Monty Python's Life of Brian
''Monty Python's Life of Brian'' (also known as ''Life of Brian'') is a 1979 British comedy film starring and written by the comedy group Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin). It ...
''; the last of these was banned in Ireland upon its release so Linehan joined a film club specifically to get a chance to watch it.
This episode was the second to be recorded, and the writers originally planned to air it first before they later moved it to second, feeling that "
Good Luck, Father Ted" would make a better introduction and finally to third because of Mathews's particular love for "
Entertaining Father Stone" - this causes a continuity error, as the VCR that Father Hernandez gives to the Craggy Island Parochial House Fathers is already present in "Entertaining Father Stone".
The cinema used was the Ormonde in
Greystones
Greystones () is a coastal town and seaside resort in County Wicklow, Ireland. It lies on Ireland's east coast, south of Bray and south of Dublin city centre and has a population of 18,140 (2016). The town is bordered by the Irish Sea to ...
,
Co.Wicklow (It continued to operate until July 2007, when it closed due to commercial difficulties).
One of the writers' early ideas for the series was that every priest in the world knows every other priest personally; this idea is introduced in the opening scene, with Cuba's Father Hernandez. When Hernandez speaks in Spanish, he is clumsily dubbed over by an English translator, which the Craggy Islanders can inexplicably hear and understand – an idea Linehan considered "just this side of being too mad to do". The translator's voice is provided by producer Geoffrey Perkins.
This episode introduced the recurring character of Bishop Brennan, who was initially based on
Eamon Casey
Eamonn Casey (24 April 1927 – 13 March 2017) was an Irish Catholic prelate who served as bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh in Ireland from 1976 to 1992. His resignation in 1992, after it was revealed he had had an affair with an American woman, ...
and later on
Michael Cleary. The writers cast
Jim Norton after seeing him as Wentworth in the 1995 ''
Frasier
''Frasier'' () is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for 11 seasons. It premiered on September 16, 1993, and ended on May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee (as Grub ...
'' episode "The Club"; Mathews had also heard his reading of
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
's ''
Ulysses''. The writers always felt that Bishop Brennan was Father Jack's nemesis, as Jack himself had the potential to become a bishop, but failed to do so because he was not a career priest.
The scenes with Ted and Dougal sharing a bedroom were inspired by similar scenes in the ''
Morecambe and Wise
Eric Morecambe (John Eric Bartholomew, 14 May 1926 – 28 May 1984) and Ernie Wise (Ernest Wiseman, 27 November 1925 – 21 March 1999), known as Morecambe and Wise (and sometimes as Eric and Ernie), were an English comic double act, working ...
'' shows. The writers used these scenes for end-of-the-day conversations to wrap up the story, and to provide a sort of "safe zone" for Ted and Dougal to discuss the plot. Linehan and Mathews had to cut laughs in some scenes because the studio audience incorrectly thought they were making sex jokes.
Legacy
Protest signs
The vague protest signs carried by Ted and Dougal are among the show's most-recognised jokes – this is acknowledged in the closing montage of the final episode, where the slogans are the only soundbite used.
The line is referenced in the
2009 27th issue of the
Garth Ennis
Garth Ennis (born January 16, 1970) is a Northern Irish–American comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series ''Preacher'' with artist Steve Dillon, his nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise, and '' The Boys'' with artist Dar ...
superhero comic series
This page provides lists of best-selling comic book series to date. It includes Japanese manga, American comic books, and European comics.
This list includes comic books that have sold at least 100million copies.
There are three separate lists, ...
''
The Boys'', in which Irish bartender (and former
vampire
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deat ...
, of Ennis' ''
Preacher
A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as ...
'')
Proinsias Cassidy
Proinsias Cassidy, also known mononymously simply as Proinsias or Cassidy, is a fictional Character (arts), character and antihero in the Garth Ennis comic book series ''Preacher (comics), Preacher'' and ''The Boys (comics), The Boys'', respecti ...
wears a black form-fitting t-shirt with "Careful Now" inscribed in red text across the left chest.
The signs were referred to by
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
leader
John Gormley
John Gormley (born 4 August 1959) is an Irish former Green Party politician who served as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government from June 2007 to January 2011, Leader of the Green Party from June 2007 to May 2011 and Lor ...
on 28 June 2010 to describe his view that the
Labour Party had few or no policies. He accused the Labour Party of saying "Down with this sort of thing" without providing their alternative.
During a number of high-profile UK protests, including throughout the Pope's state visit in September 2010 and student protests against tuition fee rises in November 2010, as well as protests against the Irish EU bailout and austerity measures in November 2010, several protesters displayed banners saying "Down with this sort of thing" and "Careful now".
The line is referenced in the 2013 video game ''
Grand Theft Auto V'', where a protester is seen carrying a "Down with this sort of thing" sign.
Fan film
A black-and-white silent short film, ''Saint Tibulus & The Bog Water'', was shot on 1 March 2014 at the eighth annual
Ted Fest event in the
Aran Islands
The Aran Islands ( ; gle, Oileáin Árann, ) or The Arans (''na hÁrainneacha'' ) are a group of three islands at the mouth of Galway Bay, off the west coast of Ireland, with a total area around . They constitute the historic barony of Aran i ...
- a professional camera crew and actors took part in the production, which featured fans as minor characters and extras.
The film is set at a young couple's wedding on Craggy Island in 1740. A ship bringing alcohol for the wedding loses its cargo in a storm - the attendees are devastated. Saint Tibulus appears and miraculously transforms a pot of bog water to a new alcoholic drink (Known as "The Saint's Brew" until 1759 when
Arthur
Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more wi ...
, a young man who witnessed the miracle, recreates it to sell the drink as his own) saving the wedding.
References
External links
"The Passion of Saint Tibulus" at the IMDB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Passion Of St Tibulus
Father Ted episodes
1995 British television episodes
Television episodes about censorship