STUART Sessions came within 'one centimetre' of death when held hostage in Liberia in the 90s.

That's how close the bullets went whizzing past his head, explains the 58-year-old, now chief executive of Hammersmith United Charities.

The terrifying ordeal did not stop him returning to the war-torn north-west region of the country, which had been without medical supplies for five years because it was deemed too dangerous by aid organisations.

He was again held hostage - by gun-toting children, cruelly recruited by leaders of the warring factions, starved and made dependent on drugs.

Crucially, however, this time he and his team were able to get through to the area, opening it up to much-needed outside aid.

It is all a far cry from the former Gurkha commander's latest mission - exploring the ins-and-outs of attraction, in Robert Gillespie's latest comedy, Love, Question Mark.

"It's a bit like Simone de Beauvoir meets Morecambe and Wise. He (Gillespie) manages to combine Regency comedy with quite significant thoughts about how we react to love," he says.

"Inevitably it makes you question how much of what we do is because it's what society expects and how much is plain biology. Bits of it are quite scientific but it also looks at love through literature and there's a very personal story running through it."

Writer and director Gillespie, star of 80s sitcom Keeping it in the Family and writer for That Was The Week That Was, said the play explores our 'fidelity to the notion of monogamy, contemplating the curious gap between what we say we want and what we actually do'.

Sessions plays Michael, who, three years after the death of his wife, gets a shock which forces him to ask questions like 'is it wrong to buy sex?' 'is marriage the best answer?' and 'why does the Hormonic Jazz Band always prevail?'

The 57-year-old has had a passion for acting ever since treading the boards alongside acclaimed director Richard Curtis when the duo were schoolboys at Harrow.

"Richard was very good looking and got all the romantic leads, whereas I, not being the most beautiful of creatures, tended to play the character women," he says.

Sessions spent 20 years in the Army, rising to become a commanding officer in the 2nd Gurkha Rifles, with three sons of late Gurkha VC hero Bhanubhakta Gurung in his company.

A decade as an overseas aid worker for Oxfam followed, during which he visited some of the world's most dangerous places, before he took over as head of Hammersmith United Charities, responsible for spending the huge amounts bequeathed in the legacies of wealthy philanthropists.

Love, Question Mark is at the Tabard Theatre, in Bath Road, Chiswick, from Tuesday, November 8 until Wednesday, November 23. For tickets, priced £12-14, call 08448 472 264 or visit www.tabardweb.co.uk