An excellent touring comedy arrived in Brighton on Thursday but went by almost unnoticed.

Perhaps it's because it was the hottest day of the year so far, or maybe people were at home watching the election coverage on television, but the audience for Immaculate at the Marlborough Theatre was tiny.

It was a shame because it is a brilliant show with punchy, machine-gun dialogue which could have come out of a Howard Hawks screwball comedy from the Forties, delivered by an excellent cast.

The play is about a headstrong, independent young woman, Mia, who discovers she is pregnant despite having not had sex for almost a year.

She is visited by the Archangel Gabriel, a shambolic middle manager wearing a suit and sandals, who claims the baby is the second coming of the Messiah.

Lucifer also turns up, wearing red stilettos and matching lipstick, claiming fatherhood.

Meanwhile Mia's ex-boyfriend and baby-phobic best friend are sent into a panic as they try to determine the impact of the pregnancy on their own lives.

Lucifer, the fallen angel, is clearly having more fun than goody two-shoes Gabriel but neither has given much thought to whether Mia wants children and she is understandably annoyed at God for impregnating her without even asking.

The play looks at how contemporary Britons would deal with an immaculate conception, and the relevance of Christian values and traditions among a secular, culturally diverse population.