DAME Berwick Kaler is having only his second crack at Humpty Dumpty in his 31 pantomime years at York Theatre Royal.

Twenty-one years have passed since the first show, one that will live long in Berwick’s memory. “It saved the theatre,” he says, not putting too fine a point on it. “It put the theatre back on its financial feet when we were broke – there’s no denying that – and it was also the one where the Arts Council put the money into show on the condition that I came back for three years.”

Berwick had missed the Theatre Royal Christmas show for a couple of years in 1986 and 1987, taking roles in the musicals Kiss Me Kate and Annie Get Your Gun. “Don’t forget, I was a jobbing actor, as the rest of the company is, and even now my worry is still, ‘Will they come back each year?’ because they’re jobbing actors and touring contracts can run for 15 months,” he says.

Nevertheless, now 63, he keeps coming back, and so do David Leonard, Martin Barrass, Suzy Cooper and the young triumvirate of Vincent Gray, AJ Powell and Julie Anna Castro.

“Top of my Christmas wish list each year is that they will return…and Harry Gration, of course, as I’m working on destroying his career…and [co-director] Damian Cruden too, who I’m turning into a psychiatrist.”

Once upon a time, Humpty Dumpty was a very popular pantomime but gradually it has slipped away from panto’s premier league. “In the days of Dan Leno it was up there with Cinderella and Jack And The Beanstalk, but it was also the pantomime that destroyed Leno. It was the panto where he went mad and then died at the age of 44,” says Berwick, recalling the fall of his theatrical hero. “Writing pantos and being the dame should come with a health warning!”

Leno’s pantomimes were the talk of London town. “In those days, pantomime was a great vehicle for theatres to put on as their extravaganzas,” Berwick says. “Bear in mind that in the transformation scene at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, you would have elephants crossing the stage, going straight through the theatre and into their box carts in the street on the opposite side.

“The transformation scene would last for 20-30 minutes at a time when television wasn’t around and so these shows were huge events that people would come from miles around to see.”

Such lavish days may have gone and yet the image created by Berwick nevertheless chimes with the 21st century pantomimes at the Theatre Royal, where Kaler’s shows embrace film scenes, spectacular props and costume changes galore.

This was not the case in 1988, when financial constraints meant the Theatre Royal had to cut its cloth accordingly for Berwick’s first Humpty Dumpty. “The theatre had no money; the sets were awful and I was lucky if I wore two or three frocks in the evening, when now I could do that in one scene, but the public seemed to like it,” he says.

“There was nothing to look at, so everyone concentrated on the performances. I’d done eight Theatre Royal pantomimes by the time we did Humpty Dumpty but David Leonard and Martin Barrass hadn’t and I honestly think that show enhanced their reputation in York as it was a ‘performance pantomime’ and people tuned into that.”

Berwick made a vow that if he ever put Humpty Dumpty back together again, he would make the show visually what he wished it could have been in 1988.

“There was a bit of unfinished business and now it’s a case of bringing it back and giving it everything I wanted to 21 years ago, though of course the material will be different and the songs will be different,” he says. “The only song I’ll bring back will be the full version of Babbies And Bairns, which we introduced for Humpty Dumpty. For years people have thought it’s only five lines long. It isn’t, it’s 20…it’s just repetitive!”

David Leonard’s villain will take the name of Count Eggula, just as he did 21 years ago, while Kaler’s stalwart stooge, Martin Barrass, will play Zebedee, but as Dame Berwick’s role of Old Mother Hubbard indicates, other characters will be rooted in nursery rhymes, just as they were in 1988.

Berwick’s script, however, is entirely fresh as he moves with the times while maintaining the Theatre Royal pantomime’s distinctive character.

“It’s amazing what people will accept now and I’m not talking about smut because the audience here is not comfortable with smut. There’s always been innuendo but if it’s in your face, it’s not innuendo,” he says.

“We sometimes overdo the joke that we don’t have a plot. It’s like me saying it’s the ‘same old rubbish’; you can only say that if you have good production values.

“We always have a plot: in Jack And The Beanstalk, you will always see a beanstalk; it’s just a question of what kind of beanstalk and where do we go on that journey?”

Tradition is what you make it, he suggests. “Our pantomime is a traditional pantomime but not necessarily what would be considered a traditional panto five miles outside York. It’s a tradition unto itself,” he says.

Berwick’s Humpty Dumpty will incorporate robots, the Spartan Amy and a Japanese general. “It may not be the classical story but what happens in the show is always relevant to our story,” he says. “Why come to a panto if you already know exactly what you’re going to see? That’s always flummoxed me.”

Humpty Dumpty sits on the wall at York Theatre Royal from Thursday to January 30. Box office: 01904 623568 or online at www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk