IT was Christmas 1993 when a young comic called Billy Pearce first walked out on the Alhambra stage.

The panto was Cinderella, and Billy quickly established himself as a hit with audiences. “I was Simple Simon, they left all the clowning around to me so I just got on with it,” he says. “I’ve been coming back ever since...”

This year Billy stars in his 20th Alhambra pantomime - playing Wishee Washee in Aladdin, alongside Christopher Biggins as Widow Twankee and Simon Webbe in the title role. Over the years Billy has entertained twice the population of Bradford.

"Everyone keeps telling me I've been here 20 years, I feel ancient!" laughs Billy, who this year received Welcome to Yorkshire’s Pride of Yorkshire award for services to entertainment. “Coming back to the Alhambra feels like coming home," he adds. "It's my favourite place. The staff are wonderful, backstage and front of house, and for panto, this theatre is first division."

With spectacular illusions and special effects, the Alhambra panto gets more jaw-droppingly hi-tech each year. But at its heart remains the charm and tradition of the shows established over a century ago by Francis Laidler. In the Alhambra hangs a plaque which reads: "A Tribute to the King of Pantomime, Francis Laidler, who loved to make children happy" in memory of the impresario who had the theatre built in 1914.

Laidler's spirit lives on, with the Alhambra staging Yorkshire's biggest panto. And today Billy wears the city's King of Panto crown. "Panto for me is the energy from the audience - the families and children," he says. "I have speakers in my dressing-room so I can hear them filling the seats, you can feel the excitement rising.”

Over the years Billy has flown over the auditorium in a car and a motorbike (this year it's a flying carpet) and taken 3D journeys into caves and up beanstalks. But he says the simple appeal of panto is what children still love.

"I meet kids and they just want me to do the "Don't touch the box..." routine. That's what they remember" he smiles. "You need special effects, because theatre is sophisticated, but you also need the gags and slapstick."

Billy began performing as a child, attending his mother's dance classes in Leeds, and went on to work the tough club circuit as a stand-up comic. After appearing on TV's New Faces in 1986 he was snapped up for stage and television appearances, and has performed in three Royal Variety Shows. Over the years he's been in such shows as Boogie Nights, The Wind in the Willows and Eurobeat, playing a Bosnian Eurovision host with Mel Giedroyc. This year he toured in comedy musical Seriously Dead alongside Tommy Cannon.

"It was great for me, no ‘10 minutes of business for just Billy’, but I could still add my own bits to it,” says Billy. "There was no breaking the fourth wall like panto. I've done serious drama before, like The Street on telly, but I usually play a northern comic, a version of myself. People just see me as the end-of-the-pier comic with a mullet, that's what I tend to get offered. But this was a role I could get my teeth into. I loved it. I like to learn."

He adds: “One thing I love about my job is trying to make people happy, I don’t think there’s anything better than that. And with panto I try to bring out a bit of pathos among the laughs."

Now 67, Billy has the energy of a performer half his age. Anyone who's seen him charging about on stage, getting the audience in stitches with his remarkable array of facial expressions and vocal techniques, will know he's a force of nature. His stunts have left him with injuries - he cracked a rib attached to a flying harness, and broke a collar bone, finger and toe after a comedy fall into the orchestra pit - but he's never missed a show.

"I look after myself; you have to when you're doing 12 shows a week for two months," he says. "Panto is a skill, it has to be taken seriously. We have a laugh onstage, but out there are mums, dads and grandparents who've worked hard to buy tickets for the family. It's up to us to give them the best time - and make it a wonderful experience for children so they'll come back to live theatre.

"Sometimes you get selfish performers who want all the laughs, so it's good to have a happy cast. It's a lovely cast this year. I met Simon a few weeks ago and we were like a double act straight away. Biggins is a legend, it's a pleasure working with him for the first time.I first did Aladdin at the Alhambra in 1994, with Roy Barraclough as Widow Twankee."

Billy has worked with director Ed Curtis on the script. "I get the basic script and put a bit of meat on the bones," he says. "Ed's on my wavelength."

Over the years Billy has been in Alhambra pantos with his wife Kerry, a dancer, and his son, Jack, who was in the Sunbeams. "It was lovely when he was little to make it a family thing," says Billy.

With that, he's off clowning around with fans waiting to meet their favourite funnyman. Like us, they couldn't imagine Christmas without him.

* Aladdin runs until January 20. Call (01274) 432000.