It's the same thing with Kate Betts' new play, On the Third Day, which even in spite of stunning performances from the two main leads will be remembered as a black mark on the otherwise stellar career of Sonia Friedman, one of the West-End's most feted theatre producers.

Betts is the winner of The Play's The Thing, a kind of Pop Idol for playwrights. The aim of this Channel 4 competition was noble and ambitious; to put the work of an unheard of British playwright straight into the West End and make a critical and financial success of it. Whittling down the 2,000 entries to a shortlist of three was done by Friedman, abetted by literary agent Mel Kenyon and actor Neil Pearson.

On The Third Day could have been pitched as Bridget Jones meets Whistle Down The Wind, except it's darker and more surreal. The play follows what happens when Claire (Maxine Peake) meets, and falls for, an environmental health officer, Mike, who claims to be Jesus.

The preposterous concept of the Son of God transmogrified into a council worker has considerable comic potential, but also results in some pretty clichéd scenes. Like when Claire tenderly washes Mike’s feet, or he cooks her a fish supper and gives away his shoes to a tramp.

However it was the final scene, set in an Italian restaurant, with the action framed around a Last Supper tableaux, complete with a singing Elvis, that was so obvious and predictable it ended up almost excrutiating to watch. It would have made even a cherub puke.

The hackneyed nature of such scenes detracts from Claire's plight and distress. Claire is a 30-year-old virgin, who works at the Greenwich planetarium. She is still traumatised by the death of her parents and the incestuous relationship that developed between her and her brother when they were kids, something that scars and haunts them both.

As a result the play features some very dark and disturbing moments: scenes of mental breakdown, sexual taboo, self harm - and, bizarrely, pot holing. (Supposedly to signify the different extremes the siblings will go to hide their suffering - one chooses the heavens, the other the belly of the earth).

Maxine Peake is excellent as the vulnerable, traumatised Claire, and acts her socks off within the confines of the cliché-riddled script, bringing real emotion and depth to Betts' writing. Her performance is poignant and deeply affecting, as she tries to exorcise the demons from her relationship with Robbie, her brother, played by Tom McKay, who also excels as the tormented and confused young man.

Paul Hilton too is brilliant as the greasy, lanky Jesus character, who falls for Claire three days before she hits the big 3-0. He is witty and compassionate, driven to save his flock, but for the Son of God, I would have expected more certainty, presence and charisma - something that the script, with more workshopping, could have delivered.

Mark Thompson's set however is stupendous, with its sliding screens and pieces of staging that descend from above. His construction of Claire's kitchen with its backdrop of shelves, cleverly mimicking the façade of the towerblock she lives in. Jon Driscoll's projections, which cover the walls of the box-like set, also succeed in conveying the more surreal and dream-like qualities of the piece.

I really wanted to like this play, I wanted the execs at Channel 4 to discover the next John Osborne, but they didn't. And even though Friedman et al should be praised for daring to do something different in the West End, like my colleague with acne, the process has left them rather red faced.

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