THE Fantasticks may be Broadway's longest-running musical, but bonny actor Tim Stedman has a confession to make before tonight's opening performance at Harrogate Theatre.

"I've never seen it, and in fact I'd never heard of it until Hannah artistic director Hannah Chissick said 'Do you want to do this show?'. I took it on trust! I'm just doing a small role, so this time I can watch the others working hard!"

Harrogate Theatre audiences will be familiar with such cheek from Tim's effervescent performances as the comic simpleton in pantomime, culminating in his word-twisting tour de force as Muddles in Mother Goose last Christmas.

In Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt's The Fantasticks, he will play Mortimer in a nostalgic story of family bonds, youthful romanticism and playful innocence set in the bygone age of old-time music hall, true romance and theatrical magic.

"I'm doing him Cockney...hopefully!" says Tim. "Basically he's a young apprentice actor who's travelling through time with an older mentor, and occasionally they're called on to do a little play.

"He's an expert on romantic leads and I'm an expert on death scenes, and we pop up at times to move the story forward. We're the comic relief to provide a contrast and break things up."

The Fantasticks is a vaudeville comedy pastiche crossed with a Brothers Grimm fairytale: territory not a million miles from pantomime. "Hannah did say that it was like a panto, and with me playing the apprentice to the older actor, just as I do with the dame in panto, it has panned out that way!" he says.

"As with the panto, we'll be using the auditorium and the boxes a little bit, and I think the show is going to be magical. The costumes are stunning, and there'll be some nice surprises!"

The Fantasticks, Harrogate Theatre, tonight until April 23. Box office: 01423 502116.

Updated: 16:46 Thursday, March 31, 2005