DAVID Leonard and Suzy Cooper will be re-uniting with the rebuilt Berwick Kaler and Martin Barrass in Jack And The Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal from December 14, but while you are waiting for panto number 39 for the dowager dame, so will they be.

More precisely, the prancing villain and the perennial principal gal will be presenting Waiting For Panto, An Evening with David Leonard and Suzy Cooper, on their most familiar stage on October 22 in a fundraiser for the Theatre Royal's on-going work with the community.

David and Suzy invite you to join them for an evening of...."waiting". "We suppose you all wonder just what do our panto stars do between each serving of the annual rubbish. Just what to do," says this season's Theatre Royal brochure.

"Suzy and David tend to wile away the nine months, lolling around their Bloomsbury and Kensington apartments in diaphanous silk gowns; drinking vintage champagne and asking what is my part going to be like in this year's panto, David no longer certain he will play a man and Suzy no longer certain she will play a girl of 16."

So, Suzy, what should we expect from your appearance in the "Waiting" room? Rumour has it you will be sharing some of your favourite poems (not by Berwick Kaler); play readings (not by Berwick Kaler); the odd song (not by Berwick Kaler) and some gags (possibly by Berwick Kaler but most likely by Martin Barrass) as you "simply wait for the next panto to start and for life yet again to take on some meaning".

"Basically, what happened is we came up in March for the opening of the box office for the panto and I bumped into David as he was milling around town and he said the marketing department had asked if we could host a fundraising wine and cheese evening with a bit of poetry in the De Grey Rooms," recalls Suzy.

"I don't eat cheese any more but I do enjoy a glass of wine! Anyway, we said yes and then I got news from Damian [artistic director Damian Cruden] that it was doing really well, so it was now going to be moved to the main house stage. 'Talk about what you've done, what you haven't done, read some poetry, tell some stories', he said."

This they shall indeed do in an evening built around theatre from the 1920s onwards. "We'll be sitting around in dressings gowns, very relaxed, talking about what theatre means to us," says Suzy. "It will be slightly crazy and zany, which is what the Theatre Royal audience would expect from us, rather than a serious evening of Chaucer, and as ever with the Theatre Royal, it'll be the audience that makes it work, so they'll be open-minded about what's going to happen.

"The first act will be us doing what we do, with a little bit of song and dance, and in the second half they can ask questions about whatever they like. I've got some very good vegan recipes I can share, but it is billed as Waiting For Panto, and I don't really think they're particularly interested in my vegan cooking or stories of dropping off my son at school, my yoga mat or my corporate acting work..."

...Corporate acting work, Suzy? "I'm doing drama-based training programmes, working for construction companies; Railtrack; and I'm about to go to a petrochemicals company in Somerset. I've come to realise at my grand old age that you can be an actor without ever stepping into a theatre!" she says.

Come the end of November, however, Suzy will do exactly that, however, to start rehearsals for Jack And The Beanstalk. "I rang Berwick the other day to say 'I'll even play the beanstalk'. I'm sort of trying to get him to pull me away from being principal girl, to be at David's side or whatever, but he's adamant the audience don't want to accept me as anything else, but I think they'll tell me when to leave that box!"

York Theatre Royal Fundraising presents Waiting For Panto, An Evening with David Leonard and Suzy Cooper, York Theatre Royal, October 22, 7.30pm; tickets £25. Jack And The Beanstalk will run from December 14 to February 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk