“THERE was one called Big Bad Dom, it was for Domestos and it was set as a Western,” Bill Ward sets the scene for his favourite childhood ad, with such gravitas, he may as well be reciting Shakespeare. “Domestos was going round with a gun, sorting things out and solving problems. I remember that one particularly well.”

Before riling up the nation as Coronation Street’s resident Mr Nasty, Bill spent a decade in advertising and the adman in him can’t resist a mid-interview nod to the greatest hit(s).

“I used to watch the telly as a child and think the adverts where the best thing on it,” he roars with laughter. “One of the things I like about advertising but is often misunderstood about it is that it’s very truthful as an industry. You cannot tell lies; but what you do is look for the best truth that you can say about your product. Acting is quite similar in that way. In acting you’re trying to find what makes your character tick, the same as advertising is trying to find what makes the brand or product tick. You’re trying to do it in a way that’s sympathetic to the brand or character so you’re really batting for them.

”I still don’t watch much TV actually,” adds the former Corrie star conspiratorially. “I watch a lot more theatre.”

While he never seriously considered an acting career, he threw himself wholeheartedly in every school play – and, later, university productions – no matter the obvious pitfalls. Case in point: his stirring turn, performed entirely in (pidgin) Latin in his boarding school’s rather niche Roman play.

“We learnt it all phonetically,” he fesses up. “We were ten or eleven. We kind of knew what it meant but it was a massive exercise in learning stuff off by heart. It was something about Romans, that’s all I remember. We did a lot of theatre to entertain ourselves.

“I always loved theatre so it was always in the back of my mind, but I ended up doing a proper job, in ad agencies.”

Although fulfilled as an ad executive, as the years passed he could never quite shake off the niggling feeling he may have missed his calling.

It would take more than ten years before he left his cushy advertising job for the head-to-mouth existence of a struggling thesp.

“It was the whole ‘What if?’ thing going on at the back of your head. And the only thing I wanted to know is, what would happen if I tried? It worked out better than I ever dared hope,” he beams.

At 30, he grabbed his courage with both hands and enrolled in drama school, juggling freelance advertising work with classes and, later on, fringe productions and low-budget tours. But his ‘advanced’ age, by showbiz standards, put him at a slight disadvantage as he found himself pitted against thirty-somethings with floor-length CVs, he admits.

“I was up against a lot of other actors with a 12-year long CV,” he continues. “It was really difficult to break into the business. My first proper fringe theatre job was at Battersea Arts Centre for four months,” he recalls, bursting into one of his inimitable guffaws. “I got paid £40 for the entire thing. It was a Christmas Carol. I loved it and some of my best acting friends are from that job. At the beginning, you’re swapping money for experience.”

Within five years, he had a steady roll of theatre work and quit his advertising sideline for good. But conquering the closed-off world of TV was another matter entirely. Undeterred, he slogged away, one word at a time – literally. His first soap appearance boiled down to a (hotly delivered) “Stop!” as a policeman in a Nick Berry drama. He did the rounds of Britain’s soap scene, totting up one-liners and walk-on parts on flagship shows including The Bill and EastEnders before eventually catching the discerning eye of Corrie producers for the role of callous builder Charlie Stubbs.

“I didn’t for a second think I would get the part,” burst out the North-East born actor without a hint of false modesty. “Originally they were looking for someone ten years older than me who was a native Mancunian. I had literally only been to Manchester once, to see my sister at university. I was chuffed to bits. That came out of the blue.”

He went on to play farmer James Barton in Emmerdale, before being killed off dramatically earlier this year.

“The one I haven’t done is Hollyoaks,” he volunteers.

But any designs he may have on a return to television will have to be put on hold; at the very least for the duration of his second pantomime stint at Bath’s Theatre Royal. No stranger to being reviled by the audience – albeit from the safe distance of the film set - he should feel right at home as wicked magician Abanazar in Aladdin; a role he played in his panto debut ten years ago.

“Aladdin is the only one I’ve ever done - purely by chance. It’s a very different version to the one I did ten years ago. This time he is much funnier. He likes preening and admiring himself. He fancies himself an awful lot more, a) as a bit of a ladies’ man, b) as a magician but he’s rubbish at both. I’m quite looking forward to that. I love pantomime; it’s great fun. You just get to wander around being badly behaved and evil. The characters you’re creating are a bit more outlandish and excessive and a bit wilder and bigger. At the point where you’d generally stop in straight acting, in panto you just keep going.”

And keep going he shall – no matter the wardrobe malfunction or technical difficulties, that befall him. After all this is the man who defied gravity and valiantly teetered along when one of his stilts snapped clean in Spamalot.

“I was one of the Knights Who Said Ni, and it happened just as I walked on stage so I had to hop and I couldn’t go any further than about three yard,” he adds, a warm belly laugh bubbling up. “And I said,” his voice pitches up, “Today I have decided to do the scene from over here. I got away with it. I think I’ll be prepared for panto. There are always things going wrong. You just have to carry on.”

Aladdin runs at the Theatre Royal Bath until Sunday, January 8. To book call the box office on 01225 448844 or visit www.theatreroyal.org.uk.