Timothy Lucas is the purfect panto villain at St Helens this Christmas

Deck the halls, ring those bells and warn the partridge in the pear tree – Timothy Lucas is back on panto duty at St Helens Theatre Royal this Christmas. And this time he’s planning to be royally bad.

After moonlighting at the Wolverhampton Grand last season, the irrepressible Lucas is back in harness for Regal Entertainments at St Helens, and he couldn’t be happier.

“Great theatre, great people, loyal audiences,” he says. “They are good people who just back you and support you, and that’s why I am back because I missed…not the Wolverhampton didn’t offer that, but I feel like part of the furniture in this theatre – and I don’t want them to throw the old furniture out!”

In previous years Lucas has played both goodies (a very blue Genie in Aladdin two years ago, hero Jack Trott in Jack and the Beanstalk) and baddies for Regal Entertainments. He was a gleefully preening Gaston in Beauty and the Beast in the middle of the pandemic, while his outrageous performance as Baron von Vippermall in Goldilocks and the Three Bears saw him shortlisted for a National Pantomime Award.

This year, Regal is producing its first ever Dick Whittington, with Lucas as the dastardly King Rat, complete with a pair of vicious-looking teeth and a somewhat creepy tail. We’re talking after a press photo call in which he managed to make a passing toddler cry. Surely job done as a panto baddie?

“I know,” he says looking half-pleased, half-apologetic before adding: “You were all worse for laughing.”

He’s particularly pleased to be able to create his character from scratch.

“I like to bring something new and exciting every year,” he explains. “But do you know what? I don’t even go ‘oh I need to do something outrageous like paint myself blue’. I just think about the foundations of the script, I look at the script, I look at the characters and think – what would be super cool here?

Above: Tim Lucas as the Genie in Aladdin. Top: As King Rat in Dick Whittington. Photo by David Munn.

“And with this one it was the teeth and the rat features and then, inspired with the costume designers and producers, a punk theme which is coming together quite well so far and I’m excited to just live in the costume a bit.

“I always (have input into the look). St Helens are the best at it, because they’re not afraid to collaborate, they understand that giving an artistic performer a bit of a licence is hugely beneficial to the show. You have a happy actor then as well, and there’s nothing better than happy actors because we can be miserable sods.”

Liverpool Theatre School-trained Lucas has more reasons than most to be a happy actor. Since we last spoke four years ago he has entertained audiences the length and breadth of Britain playing bad boy Sammy in Blood Brothers – a role previously inhabited by his friend Danny Taylor.

He confides that although he’s hung up his Sammy Johnstone shoes now, he’s been approached to take over the role of the Narrator at some point.

Above: Lucas (middle) as Baron von Vippermall in Goldilocks. Photo by David Munn.

Meanwhile earlier this year, he played Ferdy in a stag weekend-themed Love’s Labour’s Lost at Shakespeare North Playhouse. While it wasn’t his first rodeo with the Bard (he’s been in productions of Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), it was a very rewarding experience.

He says: “People mistake me for a lunatic sometimes, so it was nice to just play something quite normal, so people know that I’m a serious actor.”

The 30-year-old is also a singer, and he’s now branching out with his own one-man show featuring music, comedy and a live band. He sold out Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre earlier this autumn and is in the process of planning a small tour in spring 2026.

First though there’s the little matter of King Rat and those streets that may or may not be paved with gold.

“We’re doing something new,” he grins. “We’re pushing the boundaries and it’s going to be a success, I just know it is.

"I’m going to put my heart and soul into it as I always do, and I just can’t wait for it to be amazing.”

Jack and the Beanstalk is at St Helens Theatre Royal from November 28 to January 11. Tickets HERE.