You may laugh, but walking out the door isn't so easy

The last time I was acting on the stage was 13 years ago when I played a drunken New York journalist.

I had plenty of role models for playing a drunk, none for playing an erudite writer. And the accent? Well, make a lot of your "Rs", they said. It all went swimmingly.

Only one slight hiccup, in rehearsal one evening, practising a fight scene, my opponent zigged, when he should have zagged. I didn't pull my punch quickly enough, and he ended up gasping for breath at my feet.

Nick is now the mayor of Porirua City, and I am in a much better place ... and wise enough not to ever take on a part with lots of lines to learn.

But a small part ... now that could be fun. So, yes - it's true. I am playing Lane, the butler, in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest at the Repertory Theatre, opening on August 23.

It is a part so satisfactorily small, I still have space in my shrinking brain to remember two lines of a shopping list. Just. I am also only "on" in the first act, which has its definite advantages, bladderwise.

The play is a complex little number, with an intricate script, that has to be played just right. The tightly written, witty script is funny. It is the wit from a kinder, more gentle time, which has made it intact through to these harder, less gentle times. It comes from a time of romance and casual deceptions, all innocently intended, crafted with the precision of a master watchmaker.

Lady Bracknell, played so expertly by Kerry Girdwood, upholds all that is decent and proper in Victorian society, ensuring that her beautiful daughter Gwendolen (Linda Kerfoot) is not won lightly by her suitor, Jack (or was that Earnest?) played by Mike Pyefinch. Kerry plays the type of Gorgon mother guaranteed to strike icy terror into the heart of any young man. She really is scary. The scene where Jack explains his past to Lady Bracknell fuses a symphony of subtlety with a train wreck of propriety.

Algernon is played so well by James Graves that it is hard to believe he has not had more experience. His accent was so good that I had to ask several times which school he went to, believing that he must have recently returned from an Oxbridge university.

Algy falls for the beautiful Cicely, played by Karen Hughes, and then there are the dark past deeds of Miss Prism, played by Beverley Pearce.

I have about as much grace on my feet as a Waste Management truck, so although I knew 49 ways to exit through a door, it was certain the preferred, elegant method was the 50th, which I had to be taught. Oh, what a patient and gracious director that Mark Rayner is.

The set will have a black-and-white Aubrey Beardsley theme from the period, and is taking shape. I have seen the first of the costumes created by Kerry Mountstephen, and they are really something.

Altogether, I feel that I am in good hands.

Enough of this - I'm off to door practice.