IN PETER Barnes’s Noonday Demons, which first saw the light of day in 1969, Saint Eusebius has exiled himself in the Egyptian desert.

Undergoing the extremes of self-inflicted physical scourging for the betterment of his soul he literally reeks the odour of sanctity. Shackled by chains, the cave-dwelling hermit wallows in filth and squalor and exists on a diet of seven olives a day.

Though his cankerous flesh is devoured by worms — “God’s dear little creatures” — he’s as happy as a sand boy. Behind him is the most enormous mountain of excrement imaginable, a pungent metaphor.

But preventing him from attaining an almost god-like holiness is a demon who torments him every day on the dot of noon.

This punctual devil in disguise — channeled through Eusebius’s own mouth — is a fiendish Flash Harry who sounds suspiciously like Russell Brand.

He offers him gold, sex and power but to no avail —this hermit’s made of sterner stuff. But his ascetic existence is suddenly challenged when, through a tunnel, creeps St Pior — an almost ascetic identikit of Eusebius.

He claims squatters’ rights, as sanctioned by the Almighty, but “God’s house has many mansions but this one is occupied,” is Eusebius’s response. The mother of all saintly turf wars erupts as they knock the ecclesiastical stuffing out of each other, all the while spouting Holy Writ.

The only “logical” outcome of their theological disputation — staged as a bizarre wrestling match — is spilt blood. Barnes’s contempt for religious fanaticism is palpable.

This insane dispute is played out as ferocious comedy, with Jordan Mallory-Skinner as St Eusebius and Jake Curran as St Pior the perfect music-hall double act. Occasionally breaking into song and dance, they extract every comic morsel from the script and then some.

Though written nearly half a century ago, Noonday Demons remains very much a play for today — you don’t have to look far to see the results of God-fearing maniacs in action now.

Runs until August 2, box office: kingsheadtheatre.com

Review by Michael Stewart