Ecclesiastical Perks, a title lazily but fittingly taken from the Half Man Half Biscuit song of the same name – if a snatch of between-scene soundtrack is anything to go by – is a piece of new writing by Sidney Sussex student Michael Christie. Father Andrews (George Potts) has left his previous job at a village school to teach RE in a Catholic secondary in Bradford, and he finds the new environment tough. Two of his pupils end up falsely accusing him of sexual assault. The play deals with the fall-out of such an accusation on a man’s life – including the way that the British media reports it as a story with an easy villain, and the way events try Andrews’s Catholic faith. Impressively, these themes rarely feel dealt with in a heavy handed way. By telling the story through the life of one priest, and having this priest be innocent, a sympathetic character, and not losing his faith, the lasting effects of the accusation were not preached about but simply shown. The sympathy that Andrews evoked ended up being a palatable enough defence for the immediate vilification of any person merely accused of child abuse.

Whilst this is described as a ‘dark comedy’, as is probably fitting for a play about the accusation of child abuse, the laughs when gone for weren’t always as strong as they should have been. Andrews’s incriminating unintended innuendos about filling the children with the Catholic spirit failed to be funny, for the audience could guess his fate already.

Acting ability was mixed. There were good performances from Harry Michell as the school’s headmaster Mr Clark, and Giulia Galastro as Andrews’s well-meaning but inadequate friend Ruth. But it was Potts that lifted this production. Between a gentle Yorkshire accent and a timid air (all pushing his glasses up his nose and awkward laughter) he truly expressed the vulnerability and helplessness, as well as the comedy, of his character. The way Andrews reacted when he is told by Clark of the accusations against him induced an impressively powerful rush of sympathy from the audience. In lesser hands, that scene would have been hilarious, for all the wrong reasons. In a similar way, Andrews’s breakdown, preceding his transition to a slightly more passive-aggressive and jaded person by the end of the play, actually managed to be believable. This acting alongside Christie’s writing of Andrews meant that he was an excellent central character that usefully lifts the rest of the characters and casting.

Overall, Ecclesiastical Perks is free of pretention, particularly for a play that deals with Themes with that ‘T’ so heavily capitalised, and with a few very funny and some very poignant moments, this is definitely worth an hour of your time.