Video special: View from the stage on secrets of a great panto

Oh no I don't. Enjoy panto, that is. It's something to do with the audience participation. I'm hardly a wallflower, but all that getting involved, singing and shouting, it just feels a bit wrong in the theatre.

Fortunately for Yorkshire theatres, that puts me squarely in the minority, with pantomimes across the region attracting hundreds of thousands of people every year who spend millions on tickets.

Up in York, the most traditional and venerated pantomime, possibly in the country, brings in 55,000 people to the Theatre Royal every year. In Bradford the glitzy, bells and whistles panto with the evergreen Billy Pearce sees over 94,000 through the doors of the Alhambra.

These two pantos tend to reign supreme in the region, but there is festive fun on a similar scale with Nigel Planer in Sheffield – watch our video from the Lyceum, above – and there are smaller scale shows from Richmond to Wakefield, via Leeds and surrounding towns.

"I think they have them in Canada, but that's mainly for the ex-pats. A friend of mine brought her German husband to see the show one year and he just sat there saying 'I do not understand this. I do not know what is going on'," says Berwick Kaler, the grand dame in all of panto-land.

Kaler is the actor who has achieved a curious kind of fame thanks to the great British tradition of pantomime.

"It is very odd. I've walked the streets of York with some really quite famous people and the same thing often happens. I was with Gary Oldman and someone came up to us. I thought they were going to ask for his autograph, but they wanted mine. It was actually a little bit embarrassing," says Kaler. "I've been recognised in New York, Malta, everywhere really."

The record breaking Dame, now aged 64, will be appearing in his 32nd York pantomime this year. The curious thing about Kaler is that he is not only the Dame of the panto, but the writer, director and producer, too.

"It's a long process. It starts in about April, I begin to get ideas and spend a couple of hours every day writing the script. The first draft is needed by August because we need to start getting the sets built and the costumes made," says Kaler, who has made a radio documentary which will be broadcast by Radio York on Christmas Day about the pantomime. "Of course a lot of the script has become dead wood now and we constantly re-write in rehearsals, but we need to have that blueprint ready."

Kaler, who describes himself as a jobbing actor, had his most high-profile role in Spender, alongside Jimmy Nail (another famous friend who was ignored by a York autograph hunter). Nothing, however, has matched the fame he has garnered playing a woman in the York pantomime. It is not apocryphal that fans travel from Japan and America to see Kaler on stage, nor is the fact that people begin queuing at 3am on April 1, the day the tickets go on sale.

Kaler says there is a simple reason why people return to see him – and why he returns to see his audience – year on year.

"We've grown up together. There are so many people who write to me to tell me that they saw the panto when they were children and now they are bringing their children along," he says.

"I come back because of the audience and they come back because I refuse to go."

Kaler does a mean line in self- deprecation.

"To be serious, and it sounds a bit naff, but it's true – they are like my extended family. We really have been together for a long time, here in York it is the most loyal and supportive audience you can imagine. They have told me over the years what they like and what they don't like, what's funny and what isn't."

Starring in his 12th pantomime, Billy Pearce over in Bradford has a bit of catching up to do before he can challenge Kaler for his crown, but his loyal audience continues to build each year.

While Kaler plays the Dame, Pearce plays the comedy fall guy. The Leeds-born entertainer also has plenty of self-deprecation when it comes to talking about himself.

"I have been back a lot of times. I suppose it's because I'm cheap," he says. Coming up through the old working men's club system, with a stop off as a Butlins' Red Coat on the way, Pearce arrived at the pantomime stage via New Faces and hosting the Royal Variety Performance.

"Lots of people think they can do panto, but if you stick someone in a show that doesn't understand how it works, doesn't understand that it's all about the relationship with the audience, then they are going to fall flat on their faces.

"There is something about that relationship you can have on stage between you and the audience in a panto that you don't get in any other form of theatre. There's something magical about it."

Where to see a Yorkshire panto this year

Sheffield Lyceum: Peter Pan. To Jan 9. 0114 2496000.

Bradford Alhambra: Snow White. Dec 18 - Feb 6. 01274 432000.

York Theatre Royal: Jack and The Beanstalk. To Jan 29. 01904 623568.

Wakefield Theatre Royal: Sleeping Beauty, to Jan 2. 01924 211311

Richmond Theatre Royal: Mother Goose. To Jan 9. 01748 825252.

Leeds Carriageworks: Cinderella. To Jan 8. 0113 2243801.

Halifax Victoria: Sleeping Beauty. To Jan 2. 01422 351158.

York Grand Opera House: Cinderella. To Jan 2. 0844 847 2322.

Sheffield City Hall: Sleeping Beauty. To Jan 3. 0114 2789789.