The lightly grating tune of ‘Shine, Jesus Shine’ greets me as I take my seat in the Corpus Playroom. A jarring jolt back to many a primary school assembly, much of A Comedy About A Priest feels like an (acid) love letter to the utter weirdness of Christianity - in this case the quirky Anglican parish of St Anne’s. A Comedy About A Priest, an original play written and directed by Rose Beedle and assistant directed by Lily Butler, nails many aspects of what makes lightly chaotic student comedy great. Engaging, slightly cartoonish set design by Ciara Avis immediately brings the audience into the larger-than-life world that Beedle creates. Equally, Hilary Qiu’s lighting design draws attention to small details granting the otherwise cramped Playroom space crucial scale: ubiquitous stained-glass windows, for example, familiar to any past or present church-goer.

“Much of A Comedy About A Priest feels like an (acid) love letter to the utter weirdness of Christianity”

There is stellar acting across the board in this production, characteristic of the directing team’s attention to detail across a broad range of important areas. Joe Morgan is a bracing, charismatic Simon, the parish Curate, with his physical comedy afforded a place to shine - his Sisyphus-style scone-carrying routine was a particular favourite. Morgan also affords the (not so) straight-man character an interesting layer of melancholy which was performed well. Despite the regrettable unexpected absence of Greg Worden as the show’s centre, Father John, Charlie Beevers delivers, in many of the key scenes essential to the show’s comic heart, an assured performance. Line deliveries like his existential, howling “BAKED GOODS” were appreciated by the audience, and physicality was another strong point. Obviously reading from a script has its limitations, particularly in larger and more pacy whole-cast scenes, but this was cleverly embraced and made part of the show (“you’ve forgotten your words!”).

The pairing of bureaucratic enemies in Eva Sharkey’s Mrs Hall and Rosamund Da Sousa Correa’s Mrs Montacute-Montague was also very successful. Sharkey’s delivery as Mrs Hall is wry and accomplished throughout, and more absurd shades are also delivered engagingly - for example in her battle with tambourines. Da Sousa Correa’s Mrs Montacute-Montague conjured the spirit of a kind of hippie Kirstie Allsopp, brightening all the group scenes she was included in. The entertainment value of the two’s dynamic is supported by clever costuming from Sophie Hardman, emphasising their very different approaches to life, and to dealing with others.

“It gets a lot of the essentials right, and tickles its audience throughout”

Abi Beton’s performance as Mrs Darling was particularly endearing — a peacemaker amidst other more fiery personalities onstage. Last but certainly not least, Martha Alexander’s Margaret stole the show in many respects — top-notch physical comedy and fantastic line delivery, though the early (understandably) troped presentation of her character meant that the play’s later move to Margaret’s sincerity was slightly lost on me. More generally the play’s many spinning plates led to some moments of tonal confusion, particularly toward its end, where the final-hour twist felt in some senses unearned and disconnected from the play’s otherwise intelligent and original lens (though still funny). Scene changes and cueing equally seemed minorly slapdash in comparison to what was otherwise a very polished overall body of work. A final aspect of confusion was the inconsistent inclusion of the audience as ‘churchgoers’ or ‘parishioners’: where this was included, for example, in crowd-work toward the end of the show, it was largely successful, but it seemed odd to not establish this earlier on in the play.

All in all, Beedle’s production is a very good one. It gets a lot of the essentials right, helped by engaging and individually applaudable performances by its cast, and tickles its audience throughout. No need for atonement here, I don’t think!

A Comedy About A Priest is showing at Corpus Playroom from Tuesday 22nd to Saturday 26th of October