It’s a Dame good laugh with David Ashley

"PANTOMIME is sanctioned lunacy," bursts out David Ashley with his trademark cackle, fiddling with the hefty orange fur headdress balancing on his pate. "I mean... I’m a man dressed as a woman!"

Swaddled in a leopard-pelt frock lined with the same neon fuzz and matching grisly-bear style booties, he is a picture of lunacy all right.

"And I'm boiling," he chuckles some more, dramatically fanning himself before dabbing with his fingertips at the pocks of blusher threatening to liquefying down his cheeks at any second. As a seasoned Dame he has clearly picked up a penchant for histrionics along the way. "It's all part of the fun. I can't get enough," he gushes.

After treading the boards alongside Nigel Havers and Adam Woodyatt, he will be in equally prestigious company this Christmas in Cinderella with former Corrie star Ryan Thomas already signed on as Prince Charming. The pair will be joined on the Wyvern stage by Ugly Sister Louie Westwood, whose woolly helmet and hot pink frilly hoop skirt may just about overshadow Ashley's alien beast get-up, and Victoria Farley as downtrodden Cinders.

Swapping his Dame clogs for Ugly Sister number one's hairy boots this time around, David is feeling sentimental. His latest turn in Cinderella will mark 30 years since his panto debut at the Wyvern Theatre as humble villager Edward in Jack and the Beanstalk.

"That was my first break," muses David, who trained at the Tanwood School for Performing Arts. "And I'm really overjoyed to be back. It sounds really cheesy, but I can't wait to celebrate where it all started for me. The audience in Swindon are the best and I'm not just saying it. They are right behind the story, they're so noisy. For panto you have to have that. As soon as you get 'Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the Wyvern Theatre...' they go ballistic."

After a nearly uninterrupted succession of hapless matrons, kind-hearted cooks and blustering maids over the past few years, he is relishing the prospect of getting his claws out and be on the receiving end of boos and heckling, for once.

"With the Ugly Sisters you always get an evil one and a stupid one and I'm the baddie," he rubs his hands together mischievously.

"The last few years I've played people full of heart and generous, this time I want to be vicious and spiteful."

Outrageous farce, innuendos and cases of mistaken identity aside, pantomime is not to be taken lightly, oh no it's not, he insists.

Behind the exuberant persona and unflappable demeanour, David feels an enormous sense of responsibility to deliver.

"I still get nervous," he admits. "If you tell a good story children will be hooked and come back. Even adults: my mum and uncle have seen so many pantos I've done and you'd think they'd be pantoed out but they're not. I was in Salisbury in Aladdin once and we had a magic ring. We were in a cave, everything had gone wrong and we said to the audience, 'What should we do?' and half a dozen five-year-olds ran from auditorium to the front of the stage and shouted at us, 'Use the ring!' They were sobbing, they were so behind the story. That's why I keep coming back to pantomime, it's so addictive."

That being said, the notorious loose cannon is unlikely to behave. His antics are legend among the hallowed halls of the Wyvern and his efforts to unnerve and crack up fellow cast, at particularly tense or plot-defining moments, storied. Last year's Evil Queen, Jenny-Ann Topham, has blabbed endlessly about the (sweet) torment of dodging his traps and keeping a straight face during Ashley's best gurning sprees.

"It's all a lie!", he denies with mock indignation, a warm belly laugh bubbling up.

"Last year I was naughty," he comes clean. "We've known each other for 20 years. Seeing how far I could push it with Jenny and make her laugh was hilarious. She'd give me this look as if to go, 'Really? You're actually going to do this?' Because of her role she had to be serious, she couldn't break character. She only cracked twice in the whole run. I also did snow angels and would drag the guy playing Nigel by his legs.

"We haven't seen the script yet so I don't know what I'll be able to pull off this time. I think we're going to have a laugh. Ryan Thomas is a genuine up-for-a-laugh guy. I don't know what I'm going to do to him yet. Sometimes they keep them away from me at the beginning."

Regardless of the celebrity roped in to front the show, for many David Ashley is undoubtedly the face of Wyvern's panto each year.

"I've heard box office ladies say that," he concedes modestly, after much prodding. "It's lovely."

Thankfully for his growing legions of fans, after six years of the Swindon treatment, the actor has no intention to pack up his frocks - a feat in itself - and take his monkey tricks elsewhere.

"I will do it as long as Swindon will have me," he booms. "And as long as I still can."

Cinderella runs at the Wyvern Theatre from Saturday, December 10 to Sunday, January 8, 2017. To book go to swindontheatres.co.uk or call the box office on 01793 524481.