'Lights, Camera, Action!'...

There are not a few who, somewhat in general scornfully, would compare the parsonic with the thespian calling.

There are some overlaps one must admit: an amount of dressing up for the occasion, the ability to hold an audience's/congregation's attention for more than the statistically average three seconds, a certain bravado in style and perhaps - dare one own for both callings - a love of being in the public gaze. Beyond that though I will not go.

An actor may well talk of his or her 'vocation', but though I doubt not the person's sincerity I will not take as comparable - certainly not equal in either merit or significance - the ploughing of the field for the Lord's harvest and the treading of any boards for an evening's entertainment.

Does that sound pompous tosh? Am aware it might, but let it rest as it is. Truth enough that the majority of the theatrical or the film crew - as it were - would merely and more humbly aver that they are simply doing what comes naturally. If I were to say, in any riposte, that my belief in my calling is doing what comes supernaturally, then that must be a matter to judge for Him and not for me.

'Tis entirely possible He held His head in His hands on His hearing of my intention to don the dog collar in His name. I cannot tell. One mustn't - as my late and dear Abbot once said - be constantly looking over one's shoulder at the shadow of one's vocation. Leave it alone and try not to fret was his wise advice.

But could the one have been the other? Had not the theological urge taken grip, would I now be lined up for some part in a desperately intense French film with acres of remorse, nudity and regret, or else some block-busting, Oscar-winning, dollar-minting Hollywood epic? Can't say for sure, but whichever would stand me in greater chance of snogging Nic Kidman on set would get my vote! (How venial is the man!)

Note carefully that there are few enough, if any, major filmic types who did not start young. Not necessarily professional and public performance, but an urge at an early age to don a costume or two from adult clothes to hand and thence to burst forth into the drawing room - or back parlour according to taste - with some skit or sketch to lay before the doting parents and the dozing relatives come Christmas or other festive family gathering.

That though not for me. There were but two moments in early life when the 'bug' might have taken hold, but for obvious reasons to be revealed it did not. The first - and so very precious memory - was the time that the late and wonderful Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's fame of course), I and a few school mates staged a sound recorded recreation of some of the very earliest moments from the original Dr. Who series.

All, naturally, wished to be the Doctor as such, only as PNMJ - check the book for the reference to 'worst poet in the galaxy' and I can assure you he was! - owned the tape machine his was first refusal on the star part. Douglas got to voice a Dalek, rather well as it turned out, and I but the poor fellow who screamed a lot before falling to his death in some implausible studio chasm.

The second - as memorable but for more painful reasons - was a staged school French play, in which I was to be the night porter whose entrance temporarily disturbed the dastardly deeds of a pair of burglars. The plot - such as there was one - required one of the burglars to thwack me about the head with a mallet, thus rendering me silent.

Now even in those pre elven-safety days it was not quite the thing to brain a child with a solid lump of wood. (Some masters may well have employed such disciplinary measures in the privacy of the classroom; but that was a different matter and not something we all felt - both victims and abusers alike - to lay before any wider, less comprehending audience.)

As, therefore, a protective measure - and adding to the visual fun of the thing - I was to be equipped with a WW2 Tommy helmet. The blow was to descend downwards and the padding to absorb the impact. That of course was the plan not - it transpired - the execution.

On the night, 'Robber Two', somewhat carried away with the excitement of the occasion, dealt me a mighty blow to the side of the head, where the usefulness of the helmet was strictly limited. Determined not to cry in pain and thus ruin the whole performance, I could not but somewhat actually pass out. The rest is a blur.

Seeing my collapse, the master/director hovering in the wings apparently had to rush onto stage, swoop me in his arms and carry me off to Nurse who, as ever, was on stand-by for any eventuality.

The audience - parents mostly - apparently howled their delight at this. Not as collective sadists as such - though the point is moot given that they all had dispatched their 'precious' off-spring into the maw of fell boarding school life - but in reasonably assuming this all to be a part of the proceedings. Well it jolly well wasn't!

So what, by a tender age, had I learnt of the acting craft? That he who owns the kit - 'The Producer' - calls all the main shots. Check. That 'The Director' of the whole piece may think he's in charge but isn't. Check. That metaphorical death or, worse, actual physical pain was all that I, as 'Actor', could expect for an outcome. Checkmate.

Not, on the whole, what these psycho-babble coves call 'positive reinforcement' all told vis a vis life in the limelight. No, sadly, were any snogging of the always fragrant Nic K ever to occur - and of course it will not - it will have to be for real and not for film. I can live with that premise.