THEATRE ROBERT GORE-LANGTON

The Southbury Child Bridge Theatre, London July 1 until August 27 2hrs 30mins ☆☆☆☆☆

This new play, The Southbury Child, set next to the spire of a Devonshire church, comes with a grumpy vicar. He refuses to allow the parents to have Disney balloons at their little girl’s funeral. Cue a growing rebellion from his flock, furious at his out-of-touch snobbery.

On the question of principles, as the vicar’s own wife points out, he’s hardly got a leg to stand on, with his various affairs and his camel’s thirst for whisky. But the Rev is resolute: ‘Death is death. It isn’t balloons.’ His job, as he sees it, is to give the people what they need, not what they want.

Stephen Beresford’s absorbing, rural English play is about the dumbing down of the sacred. I wonder what our trendy Archbishop of York would make of it. He’s probably pro-balloons.

The sonorous Alex Jennings (above), who has worked extensively with the show’s director, Nicholas Hytner, is the ideal fit for this man of the cloth. He has appeared in various Alan Bennett plays (which this vaguely resembles), and here he is wholly plausible as the sarcastic, pained, witty vicar in a dying marriage (Phoebe Nicholls is unsmilingly superb as his wife). He is the father of two grown-up children: Jo Herbert as a teacher who’s on the shelf, and Racheal Ofori as a very actressy actress.

The array of locals entering the vicarage kitchen includes a pregnant copper (Holly Atkins), a ghastly busybody (Hermione Gulliford), and a troubled, gay curate (Jack Greenlees). The characters who most upset this middle-class apple cart are the dead girl’s volatile young uncle (Josh Finan) and her bereaved mum – a small part with huge impact thanks to Sarah Twomey’s fiery performance.

Audibility at the Chichester

Festival Theatre, where this play originated, was poor. That may be a bonus to those who dislike ripe language, of which there’s plenty.

But it works so well because Beresford plumbs the deepest human feelings in a deceptively sitcom-ish set-up. With a small coffin, the vicar finally does his job, intoning the ancient comforts of the Bible to the sounds of a young mother’s raw grief – a scene of savage beauty I’ll never forget.

A fine new play to soothe the soul and mend the heart.