Billy Pearce is fast becoming the Bruce Willis of pantoland.

Never one to shy away from on-stage stunts, he'll be spending this panto season being hoisted into the air by a harness, falling into the orchestra pit and swinging high on a rope. He's even planning to perform with stunt gymnast troupe the Acromaniacs.

Just don't tell him to break a leg' - or he might just take it literally. Previous Alhambra pantos have left Billy with a cracked rib and a broken toe, finger and collarbone!

Three years ago he cracked his rib in Dick Whittington. "I was attached to a harness high above the stage and my rib just went," he recalls. "It was Christmas Eve, I spent the rest of the performance in agony and all Christmas Day lying on the floor.

"I went to hospital but I was determined to make the Boxing Day show so I turned up 45 minutes late and got a fantastic reception from the audience. I was very moved."

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas in Bradford without Billy in the Alhambra panto. This year he's playing Mr Smee, Captain Hook's bumbling sidekick, in Peter Pan which opens tomorrow. It's Billy's tenth panto at the theatre.

"It's like coming home," he says. "They seem to like me here, it's very touching. When I walk out on stage and hear that applause I could shed a tear. I have a speaker on in my dressing-room so I can hear the auditorium filling up, it gives a buzz before I go on stage.

"I know all the crew and staff here, they're a great bunch. I've worked with many of the cast before, we're a good team."

If Billy has any stunt mishaps this year there'll be some TLC close by. His wife, Kerry, is a dancer in the show and his seven-year-old son Jack - "If he'd been born a year earlier he'd have been called Aladdin!" quips Billy - is playing one of the Lost Boys.

"He won't know what's hit him on opening night," says Billy. "He loves panto and he's keen to get on stage. It's great having the family around."

Performing runs in the Pearce blood. Billy's mother, Jean Pearce, ran a renowned theatre school in Leeds and he made his first stage appearance aged eight, as a Siamese twin in The King and I.

An accomplished tap dancer, guitarist and banjo player, Billy emerged from the fertile talent fields of Butlins, where he was a Red Coat, and a stand-up stint on the club circuit. His break came on New Faces and he was snapped up for stage and TV work, leading to his first BBC TV series, You Gotta Be Joking.

He was a regular on TV variety shows but these days his work is largely in the theatre; when he's not starring in panto he's doing stand-up or appearing in summer season shows. Last year he did a stint as the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show. "I felt like I was thrown to the lions," he says. "I'd come on stage to boos and the heckling was blue to say the least. I had to think on my feet, I developed my own ad-libbing technique."

It was this role that led to Billy's recent TV appearance in BBC1's acclaimed drama series, The Street. He played a stand-up comic in an episode starring Timothy Spall as a luckless taxi driver whose life spirals out of control. "I was doing The Rocky Horror at The Lowry in Salford and a producer spotted me and asked me to be in The Street," says Billy. "They wanted end-of-the-pier stuff so I did a bit of stand-up and the rest of it was scripted. We shot it in a day, I'd love to do something like that again."

Would he follow Christopher Biggins and eat jungle bugs on I'm A CelebrityGet Me Out Of Here? "I'd do it in a second if they'd have me!" cries Billy. "A show like that can do wonders for your career. I'm glad Biggins won, it'll do him no end of good."

When we chat Billy is taking a break from panto rehearsals. The final lines are being learned, the finishing touches being put on the sets and the final sequins added to the costumes.

"People think we start rehearsing in September, but we only get two weeks before opening night," says Billy. "I've never done Peter Pan before. Smee is a nervous pirate. He's frightened of everyone, especially Hook. I love panto but it's hard work, it's not just putting on a daft frock and larking about. There's an art to it and you have to be disciplined.

"This is a very lavish production with new costumes and sets. I watched the pirate ship being loaded off the truck this morning, it's going to look amazing."

With his cheeky chappie style and boundless energy, Billy could be mistaken for Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. "My lifestyle keeps me fit but I always lose a stone during panto, I never stop," he says.

"With panto it's like I'm a child again playing Cowboys and Indians. Only this time I'm pretending to be a pirate."

  • Peter Pan starts at the Alhambra tomorrow and runs until January 27, 2008. For tickets ring (01274) 432000.