YEARS ago, before I’d decided what I wanted to do in life, I worked in a bank.

My boss was pretty much what you would expect a bank manager to be. A calm, sensible, rational man with glasses and a moustache who liked maths and was a member of the Rotary Club. Maybe a teeny bit on the boring, tweedy side.

Then my colleagues and I found out that, when he wasn’t doing good deeds for charity, he spent his spare time treading the am-dram boards.

Obviously, we had to see that.

Nothing makes you reassess the boringness of your boss quite like seeing him race on stage in little more than his underwear while brandishing a tennis racket.

It adds an extra dimension to anything you watch if you know someone in it. On Friday I went to see Durrington Amateur Dramatic Society’s version of Sleeping Beauty. A friend of mine was playing the king.

It was his first time on stage in years, and he took his preparation very seriously. He even grew a beard in an effort to appear more regal. And he refused to be disheartened when he posted a picture of his newly be-whiskered self on Facebook, only for the general consensus to be that the look was far more Jeremy Beadle than Henry VIII.

It was a great show. In the way that only am-dram can be.

Slick and professional is wonderful. But so is that marvellous camaraderie that you get between an am-dram group and an audience.

Things go wrong. Of course they do. You’re in a village hall with a dodgy sound system, uncomfortable seats and ‘quirky’ lighting. The actors are bus drivers, schoolchildren, teachers, bank managers. But it doesn’t matter. It all just adds to the experience.

One of the funniest moments was when the fairy forgot her next line, and the prompt was obviously away with some other fairies: “Give me a line, please. No, not that one. I already said that one! Honestly, you can’t get the staff…”

And what was truly impressive was the calibre of acting from the young people in the show.

Charlotte Sarfas, Rose Jeeves, Anna Davis- Bawn, Hannah Blythe, Montana Birks and all the members of the chorus did a brilliant job. Dom Maddox was particularly wonderful.

And a special mention has to go to Alex Hitchen as the court jester.

Because that’s the other great thing about am-dram. It gives promising young actors a start.