She collaborated on this script with her friend from her college days at Oxford, M. St. Clare Byrne who was a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
This was prior to the production of Busman’s Honeymoon, but Sayers had been recommended to Babington by the Festival’s playwright of 1936, the poet Charles Williams.
Accordingly, Sayers’ script centered on William of Sens, the architect chosen to rebuild the Cathedral’s choir in 1174 after it was destroyed by fire.
Sayers’ plot hinged on the eyewitness account of Gervase the Monk who attributed the fall to "either the vengeance of God or the envy of the Devil.
"[1] Based on this enigmatic line of Gervase’s, Sayers created a prideful William of Sens whose intrigue with the choir’s benefactress leads inadvertently to the tragic accident.
The Zeal of Thy House was presented at the Canterbury Festival June 12–18, 1937 with a cast of forty professional and amateur actors.
"[3] The set for The Devil to Pay was relatively elaborate for Festival productions and employed medieval mansions depicting heaven and hell at opposite ends of the stage with various locations between.
The play discusses the issue of career versus family and ends with both women choosing work over a relationship with the writer.
The Man Born to Be King is a radio drama based on the life of Jesus, produced and broadcast by the BBC during the Second World War.
His spirit returns to his home in Lichfield where he is shown the meaning of Atonement, his conversion takes place and he then enters heaven.