THE anniversaries keep on coming among the long-serving cast members of the York Theatre Royal pantomime. Martin Barrass, perennial slapstick stooge to Berwick Kaler’s dame, is appearing in his 25th York pantomime, playing Nobby Nutt in Jack And The Beanstalk.

Alongside him is Sian Howard, revelling in a trio of roles 25 years after she made her York panto debut.

“I was quite an earnest principle boy at first,” she recalls. “But now, when I’m asked who I’m playing this year, I say I’m the dowager [Lady Agnes Ardley-Worthit], and then I’m the Mad Woman of Acomb, with a Welsh accent, who thinks she’s Shirley Bassey when she’s in a scene with Laurel & Hardy, and finally I’m the Martian Supreme, who’s learnt English by watching re-runs of Coronation Street. That can only happen in the York Theatre Royal pantomime. That’s how much it’s progressed in 25 years.”

Sian had a long hiatus from the show, not appearing on the Theatre Royal stage from The Snow Queen in 1986 until her return 21 years later to play Fairy Godmother in Cinderella.

“I felt totally safe coming back, because of who I was working with, and actually I played the Fairy fairly trad that year, apart from a line-dancing scene, so it wasn’t as scary as you might think,” she says.

Now 54, Martin has been a constant bouncing presence in Berwick Kaler’s ever-progressive pantomimes, in turn growing with the show.

“Sinbad The Sailor was the first one I did here – David Leonard started in the same show – and I remember coming back for the second year and it was all about relearning the tricks from the first year when I’d never done panto before,” he says.

“When I first did it, it was with wide-eyed innocence, where you dive in with both feet as you don’t have the know-how you have later.

“Over the years, very gratefully I’ve become very much the verbal and physical punch-bag for Berwick, where it’s in the comedy tradition of one person bossing the other around, when in fact you’re both daft and neither is really the boss, like Laurel & Hardy or the Chuckle Brothers.”

Martin says he has learnt at the foot of a master: “You feel these layers of experience building, watching Berwick working the audience, and honing your timing all the time.

“One really good note to be given about playing pantomime is placing your words. I tend to speak fast, but Berwick will say, ‘Remember the placing of a word, as you’re addressing audiences down to the age of three, who want to be following the story, especially when my character, the daft lad, is for the kids.

“Experience teaches you to keep a cool head: you know how the panto format works, whereas years ago I was just ‘Bang’!”

Sian agrees: “There’s a difference between being fast and being keen, which works better.”

Mulling over what has changed in his 25 pantos in York, Martin notes how the show has become so much more sophisticated to stage.

“I don’t think it’s age that comes into it, but we used to have a lovely meal here on Boxing Day and then do three shows at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm,” he says. “That couldn’t happen now because the crew need time to re-set the scenes, warm up the water for the splosh scene etcetera.”

• Jack And The Beanstalk runs at York Theatre Royal until January 29 2011. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk