RICHARD Ashton has appeared in Jack And The Beanstalk already this year, but what a contrast to this winter's pantomime engagement at York Theatre Royal.

"It was in the summer at this theatre in Burbank, Los Angeles, about a quarter of a mile from Warner Brothers' studios, right on Riverside Drive, if you know your LA," recalls Richard.

"It was a very small-scale show for children, which I did for Garry Marshall, who produced Happy Days and directed Pretty Women, and while it was a good production, the audiences over there are not as au fait as we are with a show like Jack And The Beanstalk.

"Regrettably, theatre is not as vibrant in LA as Britain, so it's a huge relief being back here doing a proper panto."

If Richard's Californian summer show was "very small scale", there is nothing small scale about the man himself. As those who have encountered him previously will know, he is 6ft 7in tall, giving him a mighty presence in such past Theatre Royal productions as Bouncers, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and, in August and September this year, The Three Musketeers in the role of the Duke Of Buckingham.

And then there was that naked entrance in the autumn of 1997 in Frankenstein, in which he played The Creature, Frankenstein's monster. Now he has gone full circle, because his latest role in York casts him as the villain's henchman, Beanpole, Dr Egostein's failed prototype for the giant - and wearing ten-inch platforms this time, he will be taller than ever at 7ft 5.

Although Richard has plenty of Theatre Royal shows to his credit and bags of pantomime experience elsewhere, Jack And The Beanstalk will be his debut encounter with the mad, mad world of Berwick Kaler, Martin Barrass and David Leonard.

"I've done a lot of very big, very good, classical pantomimes, perhaps tending towards the commercial, and I've worked with the likes of Paul Nicholas and Roy Hudd, but what makes the Theatre Royal panto so appealing is that it's completely different from any other panto I've done," says Richard.

"Ever since seeing my first Berwick show in 1997 I've wanted to be in one. I'd been doing Frankenstein, I managed to see the panto that year and I thought 'I'd like to do that'."

That said, he was not up to speed with the conventions of a Theatre Royal panto on that first encounter.

"I now know what makes it work: it has its own logic and its own magical world, but as I sat there watching my first York panto I was thinking 'OK, I know panto very well but I don't get this one'. What I did realise, though, was that everyone else did get it and it seemed to me the audience knew more about what was going on than those on stage! And that's the beauty of it."

Richard soon came to terms with the Kaler school of pantomime humour. "You can get it within maybe a scene, and that's where the logic bit comes in, because this panto does seem to come with its own instruction manual," he says. "The show has to be very tight and precise and concise, technically and in the acting, and it is.

"So I can't imagine anyone by the end saying 'I don't understand it'; they wouldn't even have to speak English, because it's not even about the words."

Richard has noticed the all-inclusive nature of the Theatre Royal panto.

"The American way with a joke is: here's a funny joke, wasn't that a funny joke, here's another funny joke, but that makes it all about the performer, and no one likes that over here. This show is all about the audience instead."

How right he is.

Jack And The Beanstalk is running at York Theatre Royal until February 2. Tickets: £6.35 to £17.50, with concessions available; ring 01904 623568.