After Downton finished, I was booked to perform after-dinner corporate magic for six business tycoons at Highclere Castle. For those who don't know: I'm a close-up magician as well as an actor.

That afternoon, I drive up in black tie and patent leather shoes. Light dances off the main gates; the grounds bring back memories. I had been here before.

The magic show ends at 11pm. All six tycoons are amused and/or amazed. A good time to leave. It is raining sheets like a posh, English Blade Runner.

"You know the way out?" the events manager calls as I dash to the car.

"Of course!" I laugh. After all, I had been here before. I'd been chauffeured to and from time and time again. I steer into dark fields, back toward the main gates.

Locked.

Okay.

Booting up sat nav for "Home" leads me onto a dirt track. Then into a forest. The dirt track ends but I continue off-road into said forest. This is what sat nav says to do. I stop, not of my own volition.

I am stuck. It is pitch black. I have no idea where I am on the grounds.

The car wheels fling mud into the air of Downton Abbey.

I call my breakdown service. They'll come, but they don't know where I am. "We'll call you." They do. Several times the driver calls.

"Are you here? Are you there?"

"No... No, I'm not..."

Mud covers my patent leather shoes as I harvest sticks from the forest of Downton Abbey. Sludge spreads up to my tie knot as I jam twigs and evergreen detritus under the wheels. Over an hour, I move the car back two metres with this survival "technique."

I am out.

On the drive back to Highclere, I see a "No Exit" sign by a church. I take it. Back on the main roads. "I'm free!" I scream, the dried mud cracking across my face.

I call the breakdown service. "I've sorted it."

"We couldn't find you anyway," they whisper. For their driver is now stuck, somewhere on Downton Abbey.

We never meet. I believe he's still out there. Somewhere. Haunting the grounds of Downton Abbey, and searching for revenge.