Theatre-goers and would-be playwrights took a drama lesson from former Starsky and Hutch star David Soul.
The 58-year-old actor, who played one half of the popular 70s crime-fighting duo, faced an audience of 50 people, all with an interest in plays and theatre, at the Broadway Media Centre.
Telling them about his career, he said: "I was an accidental actor. I was never formally trained."
"You can't be taught acting. You can be taught the craft, but you can't be taught to act."
Soul, a four-times-married father of six, who has lived in the UK for six years, is currently appearing at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham.
He is starring in the Ira Levin thriller Deathtrap, opposite Bouquet of Barbed Wire actress Susan Penhaligon and former Casualty star Gerald Kyd.
The play opened on Monday night. "It was almost a full house," Soul told his audience.
Fans were also able to see him in the BBC 1 hospital drama Holby City on Tuesday night, where he returned as consultant Alan Fletcher.
Soul has recently been involved on the production side of the Sam Shepherd play Fool for Love, turning it into a multi-media work and introducing new elements - notably video projections - into the production, to heighten atmosphere.
"It's important to move the theatre into the 21st Century," he told his audience.
But they were more than thrilled to go back nearly three decades, when a clip from Starsky and Hutch was shown. The episode showed the two TV detectives visiting the home of a wealthy criminal.
His bodyguards order the two cops to take their clothes off - their boss is only prepared to talk to them in his steam room.
Starsky and Hutch reply by beating the bodyguards up.
The audience applauded the take, with one member observing that TV violence was greater problem now than then.
The episode might have been a good 25 years old, but parts of it reflected Soul's more recent ideas on how drama should develop.
"The most important thing is story-telling. It's as singular and old-fashioned as that," he said.
Nottingham-based actress Tanya Myers, who was this week appearing in the Yorkshire TV soap Emmerdale was one of the audience.
Afterwards she said she had been bowled over by Soul's talk.
"I found his passion inspiring," she said.
"What his talk emphasised was that, here in Nottingham, we have all we need.
"And - through a dialogue between film and theatres and all the other talents in the area - we have everything to bring out the best and create the most vibrant and exciting culture in the country."
The actor's talk was a collaboration between the Broadway and the Theatre Royal, brought about by the enthusiasm of the two venues' education officers, David Longford and Michael Hoar, to stage such events.
They hope similar events will follow in the future.
