Hooked on panto!

Playing villains, says Leslie Grantham, is easy. It's nice guys that take talent. "And I don't play nice guys," he adds with a grin.

He has been, for 13 years now, the nation's number one bogeyman - first as Albert Square's Dirty Den; more recently in a succession of crime thrillers like The Paradise Club and 99-1.

Currently he is awaiting the release of Shadow Run, a movie in which he appears opposite Michael Caine.

Yet it is his next role which, he insists, pleases him most. Most actors in his position would have started looking for a new agent when faced with the prospect of a seven-week run in provincial pantomime - even one as well-respected as the Bradford Alhambra's.

Grantham, on the other hand, is having the time of his life.

In fact, he talks at such length about his fondness for Peter Pan and co-star Joe Pasquale that it begins to sound as if he's trying to convince himself.

"No, it's true," he repeats. "It's a holiday for me. I'm actually being paid to do something I like."

The evidence bears him out. He and Pasquale did the same show in Newcastle last year; Wolverhampton the year before that. "We broke the box office records there."

The pair's arrival in Bradford on December 18 will open the city's biggest pantomime for some years - the first to be produced for the Alhambra by Lionel Blair's company.

"I love it," says Grantham, for at least for fourth time. "It's the only chance I get to send myself up. That's why I do it.

"If I didn't do this, I'd only ever play these tough guys on the telly - people who take themselves too seriously. And actors are very prone to take themselves seriously, let's face it."

Peter Pan is not, he says, "your archetypal pantomime". Instead, he and Pasquale have turned it into what Grantham describes as a family Christmas show. "It's one of the nicest shows I've ever done and that's why I keep doing it."

This year's Captain Hook developed a fondness for panto as a nipper, when he was taken to see Arthur Askey, Ted Ray and Vic Oliver in south London, on an outing with his dad's firm. Years later, when he was asked to appear with Little and Large, Bernie Clifton and Michaela Strachan, he agreed in an instant.

"I was spoiled," he says. "Whatever anyone thinks of Little and Large, they're a great pair of blokes to work with."

He and Pasquale, he says, are joined at the hip. "We're in each other's pockets for seven and a half weeks. We're like a married couple.

"And that's the important thing - if people are nice, you can get on with them. The trouble with this industry is that there are too many egos, and that makes for an unhealthy climate.

"When I was doing the soap, I didn't think I'd ever be able to do a pantomime - but I realised that if you have an affinity with an audience, you can do anything. You just get up and do it."

"The soap", as he puts it, was his biggest break, and even now, nine years after he left EastEnders, he's happy to be remembered as Dirty Den Watts.

"People in the street still call me 'Oi!' or 'Dirty'. But they pay my wages so they can call me what they like. I had a great time doing it. I just got to the point where I didn't want to do it any more. Not because I thought I was a good actor - just because three and a half years is long enough. And as an actor you're supposed to do other jobs."

Success after soap, he says, has a lot to do with making your own breaks. "You can either do nothing and wait for the phone to ring or you can get out there and create work for yourself."

Grantham's ability to do that was evident last year when he created and co-produced the ITV sci-fi series, The Uninvited. This year, he is "in the middle of getting a couple of other things into development". If that sounds vague, Grantham's not concerned.

"I'm having a great time," he says. "There's always bits and bobs I can do.

"Is there a secret? Work cheap."

He's looking forward, he says, to spending Christmas in Bradford, and even dismisses any suggestion that pantomime is hard work.

"Yes, we do several matinees a week as well as evening performances - but at the end of the day it's only four hours' work. Most people go to work at eight in the morning and finish at five. So it's not that hard."

He wears an expression like the one Den Watts used to throw at Angie when he was being earnest. "I enjoy doing it, you see," he says, as if he hadn't quite made his point the first four times.

We get the message, Leslie.

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