Making plans for Nigel

Top, Blair Strang with son Steel and Jaime McDermott. Photo / Supplied

Ah, how the temptation to wander down memory lane a couple of decades back to the 1990s -- when we watched television at set times, nobody at a restaurant instagrammed their dinner and a drive to a neighbouring suburb took half an hour not half a day -- can prove powerful.

Just ask Blair Strang.

Then, he was in homes across the nation every week night as Shortland Street ambulance officer Rangi Heremaia, and recognised wherever he went.

Now also a lawyer whose most recent starring role was as Brian in Nothing Trivial, Strang has lately had more cause than usual tofeel nostalgic. He's directing his first play, Nigel, which has its feet firmly planted in the mid-1990s before Tinder and Bumble put paid to old-fashioned dates like the quiet, candle-lit dinner Nigel has planned.

It's a comedy where everything that could possibly go wrong on a date does; there's even an appearance from 90s TV small screen star Suzanne Paul which, for those old enough to remember, could provide a clue about who's coming to dinner.

"I want the audience to come to the show, look back and think, 'that was really a fun and colourful time'," Strang says. "I want them to feel like they're at a really good retro party."

It means there will be music from the era when Strang's own destination TV viewing included Baywatch, Friends and Beverly Hills 90210.

"You know, all the shows with substance."

He also wants to make the worldly-wise, and possibly weary, millennials laugh, too.

Indeed, Strang is partly staging Nigel because of his very own millennial, son Steel. Like his dad, Steel went to St Kentigern College where he excelled in drama -- possibly, suspects Strang, because of early years spent on TV sets watching his father work.

"He was missing acting so I asked if he wanted to be involved and now we're working together; although at the last rehearsal, he spent a great deal of time trying to shoot me in the balls with a nerf gun. The rest of the cast thought it was hilarious."

Kate McDermott. Photo / Supplied

Strang started his acting career in theatre until TV, parenting and lawyering saw him get too busy for the stage. Appearing in the play Yours, Truly last year -- it's a gothic Jack the Ripper tale -- he re-discovered his former love and, urged on by others in the cast, decided to start his own theatre company and direct a play or two.

He went to friend Kate McDermott, an accomplished screenwriter who's worked on most of the biggest shows on NZ television: Shortland Street, Being Eve, Outrageous Fortune, Go Girls and Step Dave to name a few.

He wanted to stage her comedy, Flush, but she suggested Nigel, saying it had better stood the test of time.

McDermott's memories of the 1990s -- the later part, anyway -- aren't so much of parties or travelling or destination TV.

"I was 22 and pregnant so I was staying at home and writing," she says.

"A friend called Nigel said he's give me $500 if I wrote a play called Nigel, so I did. He did give me the $500 which, from memory, went to theatre hire and posters promoting the play."

Nigel was part of the 2000 Laugh! Festival and McDermott reckons it worked because it was funny, offbeat and featured the sorts of characters we all recognise but don't often see portrayed.

"People like Nigel's parents who are serial enterers of competitions even when it's for stuff they don't need, like nappies �"

She persuaded Suzanne Paul, then hosting the TV series Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, to make a guest appearance. Paul appears in this version, too, but got the surprise of her life during early rehearsals.

"Back then, I had a baby bump," says McDermott, "and now that baby, Jaime, is all grown-up and in Nigel. I was like, 'Hi Suzanne, meet the bump.' She couldn't believe it."

Jaime is starting to make a name for herself with small but significant TV roles, including as Wolf West's first girlfriend in TV3's Westside.

"I thought, 'oh, I don't know about that -- it's a little too raunchy'," says McDermott.

"It's quite a novelty, though, seeing her working on a play I wrote before she was born."

Lowdown

What: Nigel

Where and when: PumpHouse Theatre, Takapuna; May 23-27