"HE'S English, looks about 12 and he can't drive - he rides a mountain bike." The object of publican Assumpta Fitzgerald's (Dervla Kirwan) airy dismissal is Father Peter Clifford (Stephen Tomkinson), Ballykissangel's new curate, recently transferred from Manchester - where he had been experiencing "woman trouble". His arrival at the fictional Co Wicklow town provides the viewer's introduction to Kieran Prendiville's engaging new six part television series, which begins on BBC 1 tomorrow.
It is a drama of gentle good humour and more than a touch of whimsy. From the moment he touches base, Father Clifford is confronted with a world in which little is quite as it seems and in which he is very much the innocent abroad.
One muses that Prendiville, former sports journalist and presenter of That's Life and Tomorrow's World, is a brave man to have tackled such a tricky commission, albeit one of his own devising.
"People keep saying that to me," he says, a little warily. "I'm beginning to get worried. I'm not quite sure what they mean. Do they know something I don't?"
Certainly, Ballykissangel is a far cry from Rough necks, the series about life on a North Sea oil rig which he devised and wrote for the BBC. He says he came to this next project seeking a spot of light relief.
"After two series, I was beginning to find Roughnecks quite gloomy and claustrophobic. It was a dark sort of an experience in all kinds of ways and I wanted to write something with light and space about it. Something whimsical, if you like. I rather like whimsy.
"Comedy drama is by no means an easy ride, though. If it doesn't work as drama, it doesn't work at all. The comedy and the interesting characters emerge as an integral part of that drama.
"I would say that I enjoyed this more than anything I have ever written. Unusually, the writing process itself was a real joy and it was a tremendous privilege to work alongside executive producer Tony Garnett and producer Joy Layle, who died so tragically before it was finished" - Ms Lalye died in early July, after a car crash driving home from the Ballykissangel set in Avoca.
They had total respect for the text. Prendiville goes on. "What you see is almost word for ward what was on the page I tend to gush when I speak about them, but they really were a great team.
Teamwork, glorious locations (the series was shot in the Vale of Avoca in Co Wicklow), an excellent cast (which includes Tompkinson, Kirwan, Tina Kellegher, Niall Toibin, Peter Hanly and Tony Doyle) and an enviable sureness of touch are some of the elements which have combined to guarantee the commission of a second series. Prendiville punches the air with a triumphant "Yes!" at the prospect.
When it came to getting the dialogue and the humour right, he has plenty of personal points of, reference - and plenty of people who will be quick enough to tell him if he has got it wrong. He is second generation Irish, from a Co Kerry family, born in Oldham, Lancashire. He has a wide circle of friends and two brothers in Ireland - one is a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Dublin's Coombe Hospital, the other is Paddy Prendiville, editor of Phoenix magazine.
"GETTING it right" is a major part of the reason why, in the innocence and confusion of his early days in Ballykissangel, Father Clifford turns to Assumpta, the publican, for moral support and guidance. And contending with the likes of his wily parish priest Father McAnally (Toibin), local wheeler and dealer Brian Quigley (Doyle), his wild daughter Niamh (Kellegher) and her gormless fiance (Hanly), Father Clifford needs all the help he can get. As Dervla Kirwan points out, theirs is very much a meeting of minds. "In many ways, Assumpta and the curate are kindred spirits, yet they are completely different too. She meets her match in him but is caught off balance in coming across someone who has such a strong faith, while she has none. Both are stubborn, and strong willed and what draws her to him is that he doesn't back down, even in the face of real opposition."
Kirwan herself no longer practises her Catholicism, but former altar boy Tompkinson say she could easily have found himself wearing a real clerical collar.
"I went to a Catholic school at Lytham St Anne's and went through the usual religious phase around the age of 10 or 11 when I quite fancied the idea of becoming a priest. I was an altar boy until I was 17 and I still go to church when I can. I've still got my faith."
And faith is something that Father Clifford will need in large helpings as the weeks go by and his bewilderment increases. "Where am I, Assumpta, in the Twilight Zone?" he asks. "No, Father, you're just out of your depth."