HE has made his name cracking up children the country over as one half of CBBC’s Mark and Sam, but without his partner in crime handy Mark Rhodes admits he is shaking in his babouches at the prospect of stepping into the role of Aladdin.

“I’m so nervous,” he bursts out, only too glad to get his jitters off his chest. “When we do our entertainment shows and we’re speaking to camera, it’s like you’re speaking to one person. In the theatre it’s a completely different animal; it’s that times a thousand. And you do a joke and turn and realise, ‘Oh, he’s not there to laugh at me jokes’. That’s the good thing about having a sidekick,” he goes on in his West Midlands drawl. “And he can get you out of a pickle if you forget your lines. But here I’m on my own.”

His efforts to rope Sam Nixon into the panto fold are bearing fruit - slowly but surely. Next year may well herald the debut of Mark & Sam’s ugly sisters’ double-act.

“He’s never done panto but he loved it when he came last year; he whooped and cheered and he’s coming to see it next year – we’ll see,” he says confidently.

While he will no doubt feel a tad forlorn without his trustee comedy foil to bounce off or whisper lines into his earpiece in the nick of time, he is bent on giving this panto lark his best shot at the Theatre Royal this month.

“It’s a passion project for me. I’ve always wanted to act,” adds Mark who rose to prominence after competing on Pop Idol in 2003, where he met fellow contestant Sam. “Working in theatre, doing panto is something I’ve always wanted to do. The singing bit is where I feel the most comfortable, the dancing bit is where I feel least comfortable. If I had the call for Strictly, I’d still do it but I’d be the Ed Balls kind of character. I did Dancing on Ice but did you see me, I was terrible,” he says, shaking his head at his poor effort on the rink.

“What excites me the most is the live aspect of it,” he adds back on topic. “You don’t quite know what’s going to happen each night.”

After proving his mettle as the hero in Jack in the Beanstalk, he is determined to inject some whimsy and play up the shenanigans in the role of the bumbling thief this time around.

“He’s cheeky, a bit of a reluctant hero,” chuckles Mark, who has won two children’s BAFTAs for Sam & Mark’s Big Friday Wind Up. “He gets it wrong from time to time and that’s good and I think I’ve got a little bit of that me. It’s an accentuated version of myself, it’s great. It's only my second one but I’ve got the panto hook now, I’d really love to continue doing it.”

Unfortunately for him, as mischievous and roguish as Aladdin is, Mark won’t have the luxury to wander off script as much as co-star and stage nemesis Bill Ward. As the lead, the responsibility of steering the plot to its happy ending falls to him, while the rest goof around, ad lib, and wreak blissful havoc for spectators’ viewing pleasure.

Not that he minds too much. Though he has a sneaking suspicion that Bill and Co. have already begun plotting the mother of all pranks on him. And if his intuition is right, he knows just when they’ll strike.

“I’ve got this bit in the script where I say all these words beginning with ‘p’ for ages and ages,” he says speaking at a mile a minute. “And I just know at the end someone is going to say, ‘Sorry I didn’t quite hear that, can you say that again?’ I know it’s coming!”

Aladdin runs at the Theatre Royal Bath from Thursday, December 8 to Sunday, January 8. To book call 01225 448844 or visit www.theatreroyal.org.uk.