ON stage, amateur actress Pauline Brown is playing a woman whose long-standing marriage turns out to be void because of a bureaucratic quirk.A week after the curtain comes down she will get wed for real - and is making sure she does not suffer the same fate.

ON stage, amateur actress Pauline Brown is playing a woman whose long-standing marriage turns out to be void because of a bureaucratic quirk.

A week after the curtain comes down she will get wed for real - and is making sure she does not suffer the same fate.

Pauline, from Sheringham, is taking the part of bossy Clara Soppitt who, with hen-pecked husband Herbert, is part of a trio of turn-of-the-century Yorkshire couples who sneer at those not coming up to their high moral and religious standards. But in the classic

JB Priestly play When We Are Married, they are shocked to discover they are not legally married because their vicar was not licensed.

Seven days after the play ends at Sheringham Little Theatre, Pauline will marry her fianc� David Lingard at a nearby West Runton - and the couple have been going to great lengths to ensure life does not imitate art.

'Being in the play has given me a good idea of what could possibly go wrong,' she said. 'But we've checked all the arrangements over and over, and met the registrar last week.' Pauline, a retired health service administrator, met retired head teacher David on a holiday in the Algarve.

'We were booked to go on different holidays through the same company - me to Madeira, him to Malta - six years ago, but when there were not enough numbers we both chose the Algarve instead - ended up sitting

next to each other on the coach

and found we had a lot in common,' she said.

Her stage role sees her dominating hubby Herbert, played by Andrew Payne.

David, who has seen a rehearsal and knows Pauline is the complete opposite in normal life, said he had asked her to leave the character, along with the costume, back at the theatre.

The real couple will marry at the Links Hotel and be joined by the rest of the cast in the evening. But, in a hint of Mrs Soppitt creeping into Pauline's plans, she added: 'We are going to Madeira for our honeymoon.'

When We Are Married is at Sheringham Little Theatre from February 24-27, at 7.30pm, with a Saturday 2.30pm matinee. Tickets �7 and �8 from 01263 822347.