TO be honest, skipping around with sticks and hankies is usually the last thing I feel like doing in my spare time.

But as I prance around like a lithe elf, having learnt a few basic steps, I have to admit that there’s something vaguely magical about this bizarre and oft-ridiculed thing called Morris dancing.

Now the hobby is finally being presented to the nation in Morris: A Life With Bells On, showing at Wareham’s Rex cinema from Friday.

Scenes were filmed at various Dorset locations including Sandbanks, Poole’s Lighthouse and at Wimborne Folk Festival.

So why do sensible men and women spend their evenings doing capers, gyps and half-heys?

“For some it’s playing softball or collecting stamps, but for others it’s Morris dancing,” says writer, producer and lead actor Charles Thomas Oldham – or Chaz.

“When you really stop to think about it, there’s nothing more ridiculous than playing football on a freezing cold pitch on a Saturday morning but people do it all the time.”

Morris: A Life with Bells On is styled as a Spinal Tap-esque mockumentary, and follows Derecq Twist as he pioneers a daringly freeform brand of the dance – Extreme Morris.

Chaz’s fascination with the Morris began in his adolescence, when he was sent to live with his next-door-neighbours after his parents moved to Australia.

“I went from a very traditional, Telegraph-reading household to a folky, Guardian-reading, Morris-dancing family, where hankies and bells flitted around and no one batted an eyelash,” he explains.

His film is a tribute to his Morris-dancing “surrogate father”, Donald McGregor Campbell.

Chaz enlisted the help of choreographer Laurel Swift to keep the actors on their toes.

“It was hard work!” laughs Chaz. “The line in the film is, ‘It’s not just keep fit’, which I lived to regret because when I wrote it I didn’t think it would be too hard.

“But I was in bits for weeks after rehearsals. You use muscle groups you don’t normally use, prancing about, so the calves and backs of my legs were just destroyed.”

Despite looking like a natural at the dance, Oldham admits it’s not a pastime he’s likely to take up any time soon: “It’s too hard work – and I’m a farmer in my spare time – but I really did enjoy it.”

His film is a joint effort with wife Lucy Akhurst, who also stars in it.

A Life with Bells On features an amazing performance by Dominique Pinon as a fisherman who prefers to dance only after imbibing hallucinogenic amounts of cider.

Harriet Walter, who starred in The Young Victoria, also shines as a folk dance academic.

Other stars include Pirates of the Caribbean actress Naomie Harris, Derek Jacobi and Ian Hart.