Amsterdam: Flight of fantasy

Incarnations at the Elf Fantasy Fair. Photo / Supplied

Lord of the Rings, opening shots. Mighty Lord Gil-Galad, King of the Elves, leads his noble silken-haired forces in a Last Alliance battle with the Army of Men against the Dark Forces of Sauron.

Close up of Gil-Galad's Spear of Legend, Aiglos, cleaving yet another orc in two.

Suddenly Sauron himself looms, blocking the sun and perhaps the future of all Middle Earth. Cue the Great Battle between Good and Evil, the Heroic Elven King versus the Dark Lord ... surely you remember this? No? I'll forgive you. It was cut. All of it.

Well, not all. About 1.8 seconds remain. In fact, my credit at the end of the film is longer than my appearance.

In case you're interested, I lost the fight. Sauron turned me into a flaming meteor. My heart goes out to the stuntman who had to be set on fire and thrown across a carpark three times, almost hitting the ambulance that was waiting in case he screwed it up.

Such is the life of an actor ... killed by little blonde Kirsty on Shortland St, killed by Xena (four times) and now killed by the combined forces of nasty Lord Sauron and a misguided little man, crouched in a darkened cave, known as The Editor.

Ah well, at least I have a couple of plastic replicas to console me. A bust of the elf king at his most regal. And, better still, an action figure! With "Realistic Spear Action". I'm not sure how realistic because mini Gil-Galad has never been let out of the box, much to the confusion of my kids. Who knows how much it will be worth in the future.

That should have been the end to it, surely, so why am I telling you this? Because every year in the Netherlands, at a castle near Amsterdam, more than 25,000 fantasy fans put their costumes on and gather for the Elf Fantasy Fair. You can see where this is going, can't you?

A couple of actors with tenuous links to the Fantasy World are invited to be VIP guests at the fair. This year it was the guy who played Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, er ... me. Luckily, the organisers never saw the film and fell for the Elf King credit.

Not to look a gift fairy in the mouth, with cynicism securely stowed, suddenly I find myself in a place that could really only be imagined after consuming 2kg of Amsterdam's famous SpaceCake ... except I didn't have any, really.

Since 2001, come April, people from all over Europe invade the picturesque Dutch village of Utrecht to attend the Elf Fantasy Fair.

The two day event is held in the grounds of Kasteel de Haar, a magnificent fairytale castle that wouldn't look out of place in the world of Shrek.