Every three years the Belgrade Theatre presents an updated version of the medieval Mystery Plays in the old cathedral ruins, and however one regards the content in these old/new devotional dramas the enthusiasm displayed both by players and creative team in Barry Kyle’s vigorous production can result in moments of true theatrical excitement.

The poignant grandeur of the setting helps. The roofless nave, the pink sandstone stumps of vanished pillars and the undamaged tower and spire soaring high above them. When the storytelling becomes just too simple for the brain to welcome, the sight of broken walls and empty windows is a timely reminder of the havoc wrought by tyranny and war.

A tradition in the Mysteries was to remove the Bible stories from Palestine to the here and now of the community presenting them, and this year’s writer, Ron Hutchinson, follows their example: the world God creates is Coventry, the disciples live and work in the surrounding streets, and Jesus apparently meets his death in the ruined nave itself.

The idea behind this is to give the sense of immediacy, and perhaps it did so once, but today the attempt is always unconvincing, particularly when the immediate surroundings contain, as here, a gleaming white stairway to heaven. This climbs impressively halfway up the tower where a door sometimes opens to reveal Conrad Asquith’s tetchy God and, later in the story, Claire Cogan’s motherly Mrs God. I don’t know what the Bishop has to say about her but 600 years ago Hutchinson would have been burnt at the stake.

Phil Eddolls’s excellent design includes a canal of water flowing the length of the nave — from which an astounding crucifix finally emerges — and walkways against the four walls where most of the arguments and religious urgings take place.

Hutchinson’s language is earthy, even saucy, and at its best in its use of repeated phrases when Aaron Cass’s fiery-eyed Jesus calls his disciples.

You can’t object to his message — essentially “Do as you would be done by” — but the supernatural accessories never fit easily along with this. But leave your brain outside and enjoy the spectacle.

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