One, two, three,” called choreographer Grace Harrington, as she rehearsed a dance routine for this year’s Playhouse panto.

“And again. One, two-.” At this point Grace was interrupted mid-sentence by a cacophony of loud bells, and a display of flashing red lights all around the room. The fire alarm had been set off by mistake — although it was kind of appropriate, for the rehearsals are taking place in the newly reopened Old Fire Station.

The panto is Mother Goose. The story features an impoverished lady who is about to be evicted because she can’t afford the rent. Then along comes Priscilla the Goose, who lays golden eggs. Mother Goose’s financial worries are at an end.

“It’s a wonder to see proper dancers do the steps,” said Chris Larner, who is playing the title role. “I couldn’t cope with them at all. The dancers just look at these extraordinarily complicated moves and do them straight away.”

Chris came to pantomime early: he produced two pantos while still at school, and “bossed the rest of the sixth-formers to be in them”, as his website puts it. Then he went on to drama school.

“The pantos were instead of doing my A levels,” he revealed. “The first was called Pus in Boots, and the second Jack and the Beans Talk Too Much. As for drama school, I’d never heard of such places. It didn’t occur to me that you could earn a living from acting: I thought it was just messing around.”

Chris is also a writer — he started with the words and music for an Ugly Sisters duet with the all-embracing title Blow Me, What a Beautiful Pair.

“The first time I met Peter Duncan, he cast me as one of the Ugly Sisters in a pantomime in Lewisham around 1994. I thought I ought to write a song for the show, and a fantastic geezer called Brian Hibbard and I sang it together, after a fashion – it was rather complicated.”

Peter Duncan is also the director of Mother Goose, and he has again commissioned a new number from Chris.

“It’s called Goose Goodbye, and it does what it says on the tin,” Chris explained. “It’s a plaintive little number, and getting shorter every time we rehearse it: there have been frowns from the director’s chair, and a slight tapping of the watch as I hit the eighth verse!”

A vigorous head- nodding confirmed this as Peter Duncan joined the conversation.

We moved hastily on to the subject of clothes: will Mother Goose be glamorously dressed?

“I must talk to wardrobe,” Chris replied fervently. “Some of the frocks must be towards the knee, because I have a fine leg.

“I wouldn’t want to deprive the good people of Oxford of a really beautiful Mother!”

“There’s certainly a leaning towards glamour,” Peter added, amongst much laughter, “Especially in the second half of the show, when Mother Goose has had her ‘treatment’ — we’re in the age of Botox, and the recalibration of bits of our bodies, so we’ve updated the show accordingly. Mother Goose does become beautiful, but it’s surgery as well as magic.”

l Mother Goose runs at the Oxford Playhouse from tomorrow until January 15. Tickets: 01865 305305 or www.oxfordplay house.com