Set against a giant image of Christ with nothing much more than a sliding cylindrical cage and dropping chandeliers to aid the action, the audience is offered an insight into the struggle of a playwright who protects her autonomy within the confines of a convent. That is until the Church puts a stop to it and her writing.

Ms Edmundson’s play explores the role of women in the church and the passion behind the human heart, but we never quite get offered the powerful impact of why this woman in crisis finally agrees to lay down her pen, relinquish her books to be burned and renew her vows after the threat of Inquisition.

As with many of Shakespeare’s writings, we are offered a sub-plot, which in this case proved nothing more than a distraction from the main action. Coupled with disappointingly weak arguments about faith and the challenges of freewill or live a God-fearing life, which never seem to come to a certain conclusion, and an equally disappointing ending which has hints of Miller’s The Crucible but again without the same emotional impact, we are not served up “everything a good play should be.”

In saying that, Ms Meckler’s production does have some high points: Catherine McCormack plays a powerful Sister Juana and Raymond Coulthard triumphs as a slippery Bishop Santa Cruz whose mission is self-elevation within the Church. Dona Croll is a wonderfully quirky and often delightfully funny Juanita and Stephen Boxer’s Archbishop is convincingly vindictive.

One can’t help thinking that behind this flawed production there is a good play struggling to get out after all.

The Heresy of Love runs  until 9th March.