A casual game of football produced an unexpected result when two of the players decided to team up again -- after becoming successful actors.

From left, Jason Watkins, Toby Jones and Douglas Hodge

Jason Watkins, who recently finished filming for the new Bridget Jones film, played for Middlesex as a boy and considered taking his sporting talents further, until his love of performing off the pitch firmly took hold by the time he was 18.

After graduating from RADA he scraped by, taking on unpaid work between small acting jobs and fringe tours, but kept up the football in his spare time. He used to play every Tuesday night in London with such rising stars as Jerome Flynn, Jason Isaacs and Douglas Hodge.

From this unusual football side, he picked Redcap star Douglas Hodge to help him stage a selection of Harold Pinter duologues in Oxford next week.

Douglas, a writer, director and actor, who lives in Oxfordshire with his wife Tessa Peake-Jones, (Racquel in Only Fools and Horses) is "a good friend of Harold", and agreed to direct it.

Jason, 41, then asked another old friend, comedy actor Toby Jones, to join him onstage, to bring a 'potpourri of Pinter characters' to life.

The pair met eight years ago while appearing in Jonathan Miller's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Almeida.

"We got on well straight away and stayed friends," Jason said.

"It was my idea that we do this play, but we never seemed to be available to do it until now." Since the idea was conceived a couple of years ago, they have both managed to get prestigious awards and a string of high profile roles under the belts, and Jason felt it was the perfect time to launch the touring production.

"We have both done well in the last two years, and it seemed more likely that we would be able to attract interest."

Toby received an Olivier award for his performance as Arthur in the West End hit show, The Play What I Wrote, starred in Never Land with Kate Winslett and was the voice of house elf Dobby in Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets.

Jason, meanwhile, won an Olivier nomination and the Helen Hayes Ward for Best Actor for his role in A Servant To Two Masters at the RSC and on tour in the US.

He has just finished filming Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason, in which he plays a "nice but dim" foreign diplomat, and has also appeared on LWT's comedy, Couples and ITV's The Russian Bride. "Toby was such an obvious choice for the Pinter production. We have quite similar tastes in our work, we're both quite clownish and look quite similar with fair hair -- or what's left of it.

"Obviously he's not as attractive as me," Jason adds, jokingly.

Between them, with the help of numerous costume changes, they play a homeless couple, factory workers, a pair of painters having a lunch-break and a couple of well-spoken politicians.

"It's quite black, but very funny."

The Playhouse production, Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter & Other Pieces, features some of the playwright's rarely-performed short plays, including The Black and White, Precisely, Trouble in the Works, Last To go, That's Your Trouble and Victoria Station.

It opens on Thursday for two weeks, before heading off to Cambridge and Guilford.

When he's not working or playing sport, he spends time with his two young sons, Pip and Freddy.

He says going on tour gives him a chance to drop everything for a while.

"It's quite nice to remove yourself slightly, forget all your troubles and off you go."

Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter & Other Pieces runs at the Playhouse Theatre, Beaumont Street, Oxford, from Thursday February 12-Saturday February 28. Previews Thu and Fri. Performances Monday-Thursday 7.30pm, Friday 8pm, Saturday and Thursday matinees 2.30pm. Tickets £9-£22.

Box office 01865 305305.