A SHOCK ricocheted around Swindon’s theatreland when after 15 years dreaming up wild tales and silly skits, Stage Struck’s Geoff Marsh hung up his boots and packed up Mother Goose.

But retirement, he realised in the solitude of his office, was not quite what it was cut out to be.

Tucked away from the limelight for two long years, he itched to get back to his old panto antics – and eventually ran out of excuses not to.

“I had genuinely run out of ideas,” says Geoff, every bit the garish dame, his cheeks and lips scarlet from dabs of rouge and eyebrows concrete sweeps of yellow powder.

“And I was not interested in repeating the same thing; that’s why me and my wife Jane gave up Stage Struck. It was like a conveyor belt. We were doing the variety show every May and then in January we were already planning the pantomime. We never did anything else.”

“I really missed it a lot last year,” he said. “People had asked me do it again and I thought, let me find reasons not to do it. The first one was: can I get a cast? Everybody I asked said yes. I thought, I’m not going to find a venue to rehearse and New College said, ‘We’ve got a lovely room for you’. We found a musical director and I contacted the arts centre and they said we could have it. I ran out of reasons not to do it. Not having the burden of doing other shows, it all felt a bit more relaxed.” Just like that he was back on the panto bandwagon again – though no longer under the Stage Struck umbrella. Weeks later, the cast were already pouring over the script of The Princess and the Dragon.

The plot follows the scheming Wicked Witch, played by Geoff’s 18-year-old daughter Sammi, who strikes a deal to hand over the beautiful Princess Megan to the ravenous beast in exchange for some of its scales – which are the key to eternal youth and beauty.

“I hope it will be our best. I can’t wait. It’s been far too long.” The Princess and the Dragon runs at the Arts Centre from Thursday, November 24 to Saturday 26. Visit swindontheatres.co.uk or call 01793 524 481.