THIS year’s Theatre Royal panto will go ahead, even though its star Berwick Kaler is recovering from major heart bypass surgery. Oh yes it will.

We have no less an authority than Dame Berwick himself for that. The actor - Britain’s longest-serving and surely best panto dame - reveals in an exclusive interview in The Press today that in July he underwent a double heart bypass operation.

The usual recovery time following such a procedure, he said, was six months - which would take him into the panto season.

But this year’s show, Jack And The Beanstalk, will go ahead, he pledged: even if he himself has to take a slightly less active role. “I’m not going to be jumping through any windows,” he told The Press.

Berwick famously had to be fitted with a pacemaker last year, after being diagnosed with a heart blockage. But this is the first time he has spoken of the major surgery he underwent earlier this year.

And while he was determined that this year’s panto - his 39th - would go ahead, he did hint that he might look to retire after his 40th panto next year.

“There’s something inside of me that says I’m not going to go on stage on a zimmer frame and I am not going to go for the sympathy - you know: ‘Oh, he’s losing it a bit’,” he said.

We accept that eventually, even the best things must come to an end.

We’ll look forward to enjoying as many more panto dames as this favourite adopted son of York feels able to give us.

But one day, we may have to accept the unthinkable - a Theatre Royal panto without Berwick.