Mel Smith's decision to go on a national tour as one of the stars of Gerald Sibleyras' play, An Hour and a Half Late, raised a few eyebrows.

For a start, it wasn't that long ago the 53-year-old comedian announced he wouldn't be bothered if he never acted again in his life, and why should he?

After 10 successful series of Alas Smith and Jones, Mel and Griff could have been forgiven for taking a long holiday.

Instead, they concentrated on their production company, Talkback, which was responsible for hit shows like They Think It's All Over, Ali G and Smack the Pony.

That was sold in 2000 for £62million and Smith has been busy directing films since, until he played Winston Churchill in Allegiance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

He joined up as the lead in An Hour and a Half Late straight after the festival and will be bringing the role to Richmond Theatre this week. So, is he going back into acting full-time?

"It wasn't a question of getting back into acting', the truth is I was completely committed to both these roles," said Smith.

"With An Hour and a Half Late I really didn't have a choice, I had to play the part."

Not that Smith was forced into it - quite the opposite. He was actually chosen to adapt the play from the original French version and was intending to direct the finished adaptation.

"I was asked to do the adaptation by a West End producer and when he read what I had done, he saw it straight away," explained Smith.

"It just had my personality all over it. The lead character was the part I had been playing all my life. It had become so natural to me I had to play it in the show."

An Hour and a Half Late tells the story, in real time, of soon-to-be-retired businessman Peter Travers and his wife Linda, played by Belinda Lang (2Point4 Children), as they prepare to go to an important dinner party.

The couple have reached that time in their lives when the last of their three children has left home and they are about to settle into a cosy retirement together.

Yet those plans unravel as a seemingly meaningless domestic turns into hand- to-hand combat after Linda suffers a mental breakdown and refuses to leave the house.

"Before I started this project I had never heard of Empty Nest Syndrome, but that is what this play is about," said Smith.

"The kids leaving has hit Linda hard and she starts to question just what life is all about. There are hints that their relationship had been punctuated by affairs and everything begins to unravel.

"The original version was a much lighter comedy, but I don't think that would have worked for a British audience. For starters, our view on extra-marital affairs differs quite dramatically from the French view, as does our sense of humour.

"I tried to make it more real, more gritty. There are still some big laughs in there but there is a much darker mood. Equally, there are moments of eroticism, destruction, nastiness and tenderness."

While Smith has changed the tone of Sibleyras's play for its first airing on these shores, that is no way a slight on the writer, who had his first West End hit with Heroes.

"If you look at Tom Stoppard's work with Heroes, he hardly touched Gerald's words," said Smith. "That was much more faithful to the original, and rightly so. Sibleyras is so cool and an amazing writer."

An Hour and a Half Late, Richmond Theatre, Richmond Green, Monday to Saturday, October 9-14, 7.45pm, plus 2.30pm on Wednesday and Saturday, £12-£25. For tickets call 0870 060 6651 or visit richmond theatre.net.