MARTIN Barrass has never performed on the reconfigured York Theatre Royal stage until this week.

Indeed, he has only stepped on the main-house boards once since January 31 2015, the last night of Old Mother Goose, and that was to walk gingerly towards dame Berwick Kaler's embrace on last December's press night for Cinderella, drinking in wave upon wave of cheers as he continued his remarkable recovery from the A59 motorcycle crash that Barrass later learnt had left him with a one per cent chance of survival.

"It wasn't my time to die," he told The Press in his August interview, where he revealed he had died twice, once on the way to hospital in Leeds in the Yorkshire Air Ambulance helicopter, a second time once there.

Barrass is bouncing back, restored to the Theatre Royal pantomime family to play comic stooge Stanley Manley in Jack And The Beanstalk alongside Kaler, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper, AJ Powell and co, from tonight.

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Martin Barrass in familiar York Theatre Royal pantomime guise as the dame's daft son

"I was last in the Theatre Royal panto when we had that wonderful, wonderful Dick Whittington show on the rail track at the National Railway Museum in 2015-2016, and I've not played on the new stage yet," he said on Tuesday, looking sprightly and trim as ever in that Stan Laurel way of his, now in his 60s.

"I've just stood there on press night when Berwick brought me on last year. That was the only time, so I'm really looking forward to the opening night as the new design guarantees a really good view for everyone, right up to the gallery and I've always loved playing to the gallery!

"If you address the gallery, it means your eyes are always uplifted and everyone can see your face. I know how important that is from my student days, when I used to watch shows from the gallery, which was all I could afford, and I've always had the greatest admiration for actors who take in the gallery."

Barrass and Kaler have been comparing scars, Martin with his still healing from his post-crash operation, Berwick on the closing laps of his recovering from double heart bypass surgery at York Hospital in July. "The other day I pulled a Crocodile Dundee on him! 'That's not a scar...,' I said. 'That's a scar'!"

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Martin Barrass at the launch of York Theatre Royal's 2017-2018 pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: Frank Dwyer

Dame and daft son are back in union, contemplating "the most dangerous slapstick we've ever attempted", as Kaler trailered in last Thursday's What's On. Dame Berwick was equally quick to say too that he did not consider their uncanny comic interplay to be a double act, a suggestion that set Barrass thinking.

"What is often said is that we're jobbing actors, though people could see us as a double act, but there you usually have a straight man and a funny guy, and yes, I am Berwick's feed, but I do have my own funny bits too, and it's more like two egos battling it out," he says.

"In my first year, he took over one of my lines and I said, 'that's my line'. 'I know,' he said, 'but it's funnier when I say it', so it's the best of both worlds. He gets the laugh and I get the sympathy. It's like having a verbal bucket of water thrown over me."

Barrass is looking forward to the infamous slapstick scene as much as ever. "One of the reasons I wanted to do panto, when I was first offered the chance, was the slapstick, the anarchy, the visual humour, to really stretch the envelope for a fan of Laurel and Hardy," he says. "And for me, the bigger, the brighter, the messier, the more daring, the better."

York Press:

Carrot in search of a plot: Martin Barrass playing comic stooge to Berwick Kaler's dame

Barrass and Kaler's brushes with death – Berwick had life-saving surgery last year after suffering a heart blockage – inevitably will lead to banter in this winter's show. "It certainly does feature," says Martin. "It's never avoided; let's put it that way.

"It still feels kind of beyond belief that I survived the crash. Sometimes I have to smack myself and say, 'Am I still here?', though I certainly believe in the talents of the medical services."

Not only is Martin Barrass still here but he has had "an absolutely fantastic year" with his participation in the UK City Of Culture in his home city of Hull, first when coming through his first physical exertions in Richard Bean's English Civil War farce The Hypocrite at Hull Truck Theatre in March, then in the lead role in John Godber's The Kings Of Hull at Hull New Theatre in October.

"By the end of the eight-week run of The Hypocrite, all the pain had gone and I could raise my arms fully above shoulder height again," says Martin demonstrating this restored facility to prove the point. “It was great to then do a run at the RSC in Stratford too, right next to the Antony And Cleopatra production. That was glorious, watching winter turning to spring.

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Martin Barrass as perenially thwarted Hull KR fan and head of the King family, Malcolm King, in John Godber's The Kings Of Hull for Hull, UK City of Culture 2017

“Then I was so lucky that John Godber rang and said, ‘are you still up for that project that I talked to you about’, and of course I was, playing a Hull KR fan who had been rejected by the club at 19, which kind of mirrored my own experience.

“Because it was only 13 performances, it made the experience all the richer. I think it was the most lines I’ve ever had to do on stage – and I used to look forward to every scene.”

First Bean, then Godber, now Kaler, Barrass has had lines galore to savour this year. “Working with these three writers has been fantastic,” he says. “I know Berwick doesn’t think of himself as a writer, but he knows how to write for each of us in the pantomime.”

Like Godber and Kaler, another northern comedy force has written expressly for Barrass too: Hull comedian and actress Lucy Beaumont, who appeared with Martin in Amanda Whittington’s plays Ladies Day and Ladies Down Under.

“In 2015, my agent said Lucy wanted to write this play around me called Comedy Club, about the tears of a clown, the darker side, the lighter side, but when she was then pregnant with her first child, she was good enough to let me know that she’d have to postpone the play,” he recalls. “I thought that might be it, but the play's now due to re-surface, June or July time, at Hull Truck.” Watch this space for further developments.

Jack And The Beanstalk runs amok at York Theatre Royal, tonight until February 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.