Immaculate
★★★ Entertaining
Bedlam Theatre: Wed 29 – Fri 31 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Immaculate, by the EUTC at the Bedlam until Friday, is a spirited attempt at a play that never quite lives up to an intriguing premise.
Oliver Lansley’s 2006 play features Mia, who suddenly finds herself six months pregnant despite apparently not having had sex since breaking up with boyfriend Michael nearly a year previously. Cue the arrival of both the archangel Gabriel and Lucifer, claiming that the baby is ‘one of theirs’.
Orla Kinniburgh, Eve Nugent, Imogen Gage and Andrew More. Pic EUTC.
The play is funny and generally well-paced but fails to progress very far with its original idea, and certainly runs out of steam long before a very weak ending.
Since it is two decades old, and already looking like something of a period piece, it is probably not worth pointing out that it displays a common misunderstanding about the term ‘immaculate conception’. This does not refer to the conception of Jesus, and doesn’t appear in the Bible, but is a much later and somewhat abstruse theological point regarding Mary being conceived ‘immaculately’, meaning without original sin.
Such a play isn’t the place to expect intellectual rigour, however. There is little in here that would offend even the most pious; at times there threatens to be a discussion about free will and religion, but this never goes anywhere.
Most of the religious elements, and the revelation that Mia earns her living as a dominatrix, seem to be there for shock value, but – as with the discussions of sex and the copious swearing – come across as rather ho-hum.
Director Fiona Forster and the cast attack it all with conviction, however, and the production (played out on a beautifully realistic set by Foster and stage manager Rosalyn Harper) hangs together pretty well.
cheery realism
Eve Nugent gives a cheery realism to Mia’s ludicrous plight, and is strong at building up a rapport with the audience when addressing them directly. Andrew More’s functionary Gabriel (‘we don’t do proof’) and Imogen Gage’s peevish Lucifer are both well-pitched and humorous.
Theo Riviere (Mia’s ex Michael) and Orla Kinniburgh (her best friend Rebecca) both do well in combining the realistic and ridiculous elements of their characters. However, both are hampered a little by often shouting their lines, in a production where the volume tends to be either dialled right up or slightly too low, with very little in between. Max Middleton plays Gary, another possible father, with just the right degree of toe-curling awfulness.
One of the play’s main drawbacks is that it consists of discrete sections that fail to cohere. Too much of it consists of monologues rather than the characters truly interacting. This inherent problem is never really overcome, and at times the frantic miming and choreography going on behind them overshadows the speaker. The rather clunky use of a Greek chorus also fails to be properly integrated (which is also a fault of the original play, and one which the writer seems to have been all too aware of).
The stage and auditorium are skilfully used, however, and Lily Goodchild’s lighting design is effective.
It all ends up being rather sweet and conventionally old-fashioned instead of the daring piece it so clearly wanted to be, but provides considerable fun.
Running time: One hour and 50 minutes (including one interval)
Bedlam Theatre, 11B Bristo Place, EH1 1EZ
Wednesday 29 – Friday 31 October 2025
Daily at 7.30 pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
Production Instagram: @immaculate.eutc.
ENDS
