The descent of Ted Haggard, the once figurehead of the New Life Church, was one of the most spectacularly public falls from grace that America has witnessed in the past decade. The premise, then, behind Will Attenborough and Harry Michell’s latest collaboration, offering us a private retelling of those fateful events behind closed doors, is promising. Similarly promising is the set, which has been transformed into a generic middle-class dining room, complete with fringed lampshades and framed embroidery. In what is perhaps the play’s most ingenious turn, Pastor Ted, played by a smooth and smiling James Ellis, welcomes us to his Church, inquires of our names and bids us introduce ourselves to our neighbours. I feel just as uncomfortably British as if I had taken a detour to the real Colorado Springs.

However, as the lights go down and the pastries are laid out on the breakfast table, I am conscious of the cracks beginning to show. The opening moments are strong, with a suitable camaraderie established between Ellis and congregation member Hugh Stubbins by back-slapping hugs and thigh-slapping exclamations. However, discussions of God seem to verge dangerously close to cliché. Proclamations that that feeling in ‘our gut’, which ‘makes you take the plunge’, is a manifestation of God are delivered with charisma, but seem one-dimensional for the supposedly most powerful preacher in America. In a later scene, when Gayle Haggard (Hellie Cranney)’s reassurance to a guest that ‘the lord has reserved someone special for you’ elicits giggles from the audience, I have the uncomfortable feeling that she wasn’t trying to be funny.

Probably the most flawed stereotyping was in the brief clerical monologues that intersected each scene change. Though the use of verbatim quotations is a clever concept, returning us once again to Ted’s actual church, the force of Ellis force of character is not enough to carry the weight of such unimaginative preaching.  The brief anecdotal foray into the story of a ‘brother’ spotted leaving a gay bar, only to break down crying and be healed, was such a blatant plot device; Ellis might well just have stood up and yelled, ‘just a reminder guys, God hates gays’.

Over all, it was a shame that more had not been done to draw out the intricacies of Haggard’s relationships. His encounter with prostitute Mike (Alex MacKeith) sees Ellis remain in limp pastor-mode until the final moments of his break down. This is a display of emotion that would seem somewhat unprecedented, were the audience not generally aware of the reality of their relationship – although credit should be given to MacKeith, whose gangly portrayal of the nervous, naive prostitute reflected, for the first time, a certain depth of emotion between the two.

Ultimately, Haggard relies on substance rather than story telling. The deception and hypocrisy of Pastor Ted makes an ideal play script for its inherent human interest. However, Attenborough and Michell are let down by their failure to properly explore the complexities of Haggard’s personal life. The majority of the audience will already be aware of Ted Haggard’s excommunication from New Life, but instead of providing us with a nuanced account from behind closed doors, Haggard ends up more of a simple play-by-play of events. This is perhaps epitomised by Cranney’s closing monologue, in which she informs us of her decision to stand by her husband. The failure of the play to explain or reveal the motivations of its participants renders her confession believable only because the audience already know it to be true.