The celebration of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 50th birthday might justifiably have been marked by a revival of David Edgar’s ground-breaking adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby. As it is, Stratford audiences are being offered a fine new play by Edgar, one marking not just the golden jubilee of the RSC but also the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James I Bible.

After the deliberate provocation of Marat/Sade in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Written on the Heart arrives next door at the Swan to reassert the value of words and argument as a draw no less potent in its way than eye-catching action and schlock. This is not to say that the production does not give us plenty to savour beyond the religious debate — high church versus puritan, as it might be termed — that lay behind work on the Bible’s translation into English. Francis O’Connor’s designs supply a feast for the eye in their creation of a church-like setting for the action. Paul Englishby’s sacred music, performed by an excellent five-strong group of singers, contributes further to the ecclesiastical feel.

Prospective audience members are advised to mug up from the programme on the historical context of the action. Without this, the shifts in time could prove confusing.

We begin, for instance, in the London of 1610 as rival factions fight their corner over the different messages put across by choosing one word over another — ‘congregation’ for ‘church’, for instance — as the translation proceeds. The hope is that Lancelot Andrewes, the Bishop of Ely (portrayed with great gravitas by Oliver Ford Davies) will apply his significant intellectual and political power to settle matters.

Then we are back to 1536 in Flanders where William Tyndale awaits execution for heresy connected with his own translation of the New Testament. To his condemned cell is admitted a Catholic priest (Mark Quartley) eager for his recantation. Such is the force of Tyndale’s religious conviction, however — which is perfectly caught in Stephen Boxer’s compelling performance — that the young man is himself converted and smuggles away further sheets of translation.

Later, back once more in 1610, we find the ghost of Tyndale conjured into the mind of Andrewes as he prepares his arbitration.

As is now expected of any production directed by Gregory Doran — who does not know the meaning of the word dull — this one supplies an evening of entertaining and rewarding theatre. The play deserves to take its place alongside such dramas on a religious theme as John Osborne’s Luther and Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons.

Written on the Heart continues until March 10. Tickets: www.rsc.org.uk or 0844 800 1114.