STAGING pantomime at Easter is far more challenging than changing the traditional rules of theatre. Bobby Davro should know, he's been tweeting recently about the difficulty of trying to write the script for Beauty and the Beast in time for a tour to York and Darlington.

"It's been a hard one this year. It's been the fifth year we've done a panto and I'm trying to find stuff that hasn't been done. I'm quite prolific when it comes to writing, but I found that I'm having to adapt things we've done that were successful previously. It's not easy. The scripts are really different from when I create shows for stand-up," he says.

The Enchanted Entertainment production heading for the region will be the comedian and presenter's 38th pantomime, with his Christmas antics usually in the hands of companies like North Yorkshire-based Qudos and First Family. "I've been around a good few years, so I don't mind being called a veteran," he says.

Why Easter? "There aren't enough shows going around at Easter for families. When I was first asked I thought, 'Bloody pantomime at Easter, it won't work will it?' But it's incredibly successful. We do really good business. It's not the highest production value in the world, because a Christmas panto is at one theatre and can be full of beautiful effects, 3D sections involving monster spiders and the scenery is top banana. So, it's not quite a lush and lavish affair, but we make up for it in quite a twee way using travelling props. Last year we did Peter Pan and we had to fly people, which is quite technical, and I don't think the company want to go down that route again. I didn't offer to be flown myself. Long gone are the days when I stick a harness up my jacksy," Davro jokes.

"A lot of people say that pantomime is for kids. It isn't for kids. It's for adults. It really is. There is an art and required style for pantomime jokes that takes years to learn because you can only make an innuendo that isn't offensive. The most important thing, when I look out from the stage, is that the mums and dads are enjoying it, the kids are having a great time as well because there's plenty of stuff for them as well. There's nothing worse than going to a pantomime written specifically for kids and the mums and dads are bored, shuffling about and on their phones. It's a very specialised form of entertainment and it's a skill, and I don't mean to sound conceited, which I've sort of mastered after years and years," Davro says.

The next challenge for the man playing Silly Billy in Beauty and the Beast is to explain how a character with that name fits into a show format which is dominated by the Disney animated film and stage version.

"Well, you've got to realise that – and this happened with an earlier production of The Wizard of Oz – that this isn't Beauty and the Beast as you'd have seen it in a film. We can't do Disney songs because of copyright problems, so it's written from scratch and there's contemporary songs like ones from Bruno Mars and we're doing an audience participation section where we get women out of the audience to do a version of Strictly Come Dancing. I also enjoy a comedy donkey routine and the show is crammed with jokes. When I get the script, with the greatest respect to the producers, they send me a script at Christmas and I rip it apart and fill it full of jokes," says Davro.

The father-of-three, born Robert Christopher Nankeville, leaves the sadness and romance to his well-known co-stars Lee Latchford-Evans, the Steps singer, as Prince/Beast and popular Tracy Beaker star Dani Harmer as Beauty.

"I always laugh when I get offered something like Cinderella because I can still play Buttons and roles like Silly Billy and Simple Simon because it involves similar comedy routines. I’m 56 now and although I still feel youthful the Cinderellas of the world are 22 or 23. So, when I go, ‘Boys and girls I really want to kiss Cinderella’ occasionally I will get a kid in the front row shouting, ‘You’re a dirty old bugger’. But I think I can still get away with it,” Davro says.

There’s no love interest for him in Beauty and the Beast and Davro doesn’t have many scenes with Beaker, who has starred alongside him for the past five years, because the main plot focuses on Latchford-Evans’s monstrous character trying to find love before the last petal of a rose falls.

“Apparently, they’ve got a very good mask for Lee which is the important part of his transformation. I mainly work with Andy Fleming, who plays the baddie Bourbon, and we’re going to do some singing impersonations,” says the performer, who will be busy recreating the songs of Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Tom Jones and James Blunt.

“It is harder doing an impersonation of today’s pop singers because they’re all a bit bland. The stars of my younger days were Mick Jagger, Tom Jones and Rod Stewart, who had big personalities and you could send them up easily,” he says.

“Most of my time now is doing adult audiences, and I’ve got more risqué as I’ve got older. I’ve never abandoned my roots in variety and if you saw me in a stand-up club you wouldn’t think I was suited for pantomime, but I’ve worked hard to take part in lots of things and that’s why I’m still going 35 years down the line. I might not be on the telly now, but I’m still finding work,” he says.

Davro’s latest project is staging fund-raising race night entertainment where people bet on horse races shown on a big screen with Davro appearing as the event’s singer/comedian.

“Ironically, I haven’t signed a panto deal for next Christmas and I might actually take a year off. I’m reviewing the situation, as Fagin sings, but I might change my mind if I’m offered a show near to home in the Woking area.”

* Beauty and the Beast, York Barbican, Tuesday, March 31. 2pm and 5pm. Box Office: 0844-854-2757yorkbarbican.co.uk

* Darlington Civic Theatre, Wednesday, April 1 and Thursday, April 1. 01325-486555 or darlingtoncivic.co.uk