ONCE a Silly Billy, always a Silly Billy, even if the name "Silly Billy" escaped Harrogate Theatre's resident pantomime buffoon Tim Stedman when recalling his first role.

"The first one I did was Sleeping Beauty and I played.....? No idea!" says Tim, who returns for his 15th Harrogate season on Tuesday, this time cast as Buttons in Cinderella.

"It was Lennox Greaves directing the first one, and I'd done only one panto previously, two years prior in Hornchurch. The style of panto differs from place to place, and in Harrogate it's the story which is king. Everything hangs on it, and like a Christmas tree, we then add the baubles, heightening it with our performance. That's the reason I've kept coming back."

Audiences keep coming back, too.

"They know the Harrogate pantomime has a good story well told, and the show is always the thing. I like being part of the team, where everyone involved is passionate about the show," says Tim.

"We address everything to the story, so that it's relevant for someone seeing it for the first time or seeing it for the 15th time, where you can do a nod and a wink about not getting the girl for the 15th year in a row."

Tim has an admirable habit of deflecting attention away from his own achievements. Nevertheless, while he may be a team player in director Phil Lowe and co-writer David Bown's sixth Harrogate pantomime, he has become a Harrogate pantomime institution.

How does he feel about such a status?

"I don't know," he says, wriggling away from an answer again. "You're terrified of complacency and each year you think, 'Is it funnier than last year?', but this year there's a little love interest for em, so there's an "aargh" factor for me, which is lovely."

Tim is more forthcoming in recalling his first show and in particular the impact of Alan McMahon, the lanky Scottish dame who formed an instant rapport with the squeaky-voiced Stedman.

"I would say my memory of the first year was the nerves. I flew by my nerves, but I had this amazing actor, Alan McMahon, to work with. He found his funny bone, extended it and put it on stage, and what I learnt from him was that 'likeability' is the key to playing pantomime. Once you've got that, you're off and running. Lennox Greaves asked me back after the first year, so he must have seen something."

Tim was given a further tip by actor Rob Swain that he has never forgotten. "He said that in my role you have to make the audience feel safe. So you walk on, you wait, you take a deep breath, you start enjoying yourself in a silly way and you poke fun at yourself," he says.

He looks back especially fondly on his years with McMahon – as we all do – but Tim continues to mine comedy gold from the Harrogate panto with his daft physicality, his bad cracker jokes, and an innocence that defies his forties. The Silly Billy years will continue, although one day, just maybe he would fancy playing the villain or the dame. "Villains do have the most fun, you can go to all the extremes, but though I like the comedy of the dame, it's very different from my role."

Cinderella runs at Harrogate Theatre from Tuesday to January 18 2015. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk