ALAN McMahon, cult dame in the Harrogate Theatre pantomime, takes to the stage tonight as the first of the region's professional pantos opens.

This is the gangling Scot's sixth year in Harrogate, and he is back where he started, playing Widow Twankey in Aladdin. "It was my first one here, directed by Rob Swain, and I once did it for Pat Trueman at the Swan Theatre in Worcester. That was many years ago... before the war in fact!" he lies.

Widow Twankey is among Alan's favourite dames.

"There are two that are the pick. Mother Goose is the one people know the most, along with Aladdin, so it's good to be doing Widow Twankey for a third time," he says.

Alan has re-united once more with director Lennox Greaves, writer Nicholas Pegg and comic stooge Tim Steadman and he is happy the Harrogate pantomime will be built upon such trusty foundations. "It makes it easier for us to prepare the show when you're working with people you know and get on well with, and I think the audience appreciates having the same team back," he says.

"In my case I've built up familiar speech patterns and phrases that I use every year; some of that comes by trial and error on stage, some of it comes in rehearsal.

"So every year now I have a book in the show, bad poems last year, terrible jokes and puns this year - though I'm not good at telling jokes!"

Don't believe him.

Aladdin, Harrogate Theatre, until January 10. Box office: 01423 502116.

Updated: 10:31 Friday, November 28, 2003