Almost 15 years ago, Gavin Wilson was told bluntly: "You don't know how to tell a joke."

The statement floored him — he wanted to floor the person who said it but he wisely held his counsel and instead learnt from one of the best instructors around.

It was in 1995 that Mr. Wilson, now a veteran of Dames and currently starring as Dame Tilly Tonsils in the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society's pantomime 'Robin Hood' at the City Hall Theatre, was given the shattering news.

He was playing Dame Nurse Fanny Fettlebuck in 'Robin Hood and Babes in the Wood' after stepping in when someone else backed out.

Mr. Wilson met Jonathan Owen, the director of the current panto and recognised as one of the top three Dames in the UK, for what is called a 'stumble through' of the play.

"Jon said, 'everybody go, Gavin do you mind staying behind'. So I thought, 'obviously, he wants to congratulate me for coming in at the last minute and doing this absolutely stupendous, you know, effort'.

"So we sit there and he looks at me and said, 'you haven't a clue what you are doing'. The first thing I wanted to do was pulverise the guy, and I counted to ten and I didn't, and it was the best thing I ever did. 'What do you mean?' I asked, and he said, 'Gavin, pantomime is Vaudeville, you've got to be out of there, the audience expects it; you don't know how to tell a joke!'

He classes his first pantomime as returning to school. "It was a learning experience," said Mr. Wilson, who had studied theatre in university, before moving into broadcast journalism.

"When you say something, you say it out to the audience, because it is the one theatre where you break the fourth wall and you can invite the audience in, so you jump in and out of the show.

"You move like lightning, the jokes are corny, but they want them to be corny. For instance, 'What do you call a girl with one leg shorter than the other?'

"The jokes assume that everyone in the audience has an IQ around room temperature. So what do you call a girl with one leg shorter than the other? Ilene.

"People laugh. It is done in this rather magical pretend world of pantomime and you just leave all your seriousness behind."

Historically, he said, his role during the opening scene involves him saying: "I'm so lonely, I'm so lonely," and the audience responds, 'ahhhhh', and I say, 'much lonelier than that and I think what I need is a boyfriend'.

"And then that is the scary part, because the lights go up and you suddenly realise that there are a lot of ugly people in this world and you have to choose one.

"A lot of Bermudian men and I am Bermudian so I can say it are quite homophobic and think, 'that big sissy better not choose me'. Those are the ones you go for and you say something like, 'and what's your name?'

"And when they don't answer, I ask, 'was that question too difficult for you?' Eventually they'll say 'Bob', and I'll ask if they play golf and if they say yes, I'll tell them that they could've played a round with me.

"And you just play to them. Sometimes you get some that play along and then you get those that don't and I just love it. They have the wife and the kids, so they have to go along with it."

Of theatre Mr. Wilson said, it's a classic team effort. "You are only as good as the person who is putting you on and those are the people who build the sets, who run the show.

"I can go out and be the greatest thing you have ever seen, but if the mic doesn't work or if the cues don't come, you're dead no matter how good you are," he said.

Of director, Jonathan Owen, he said: "The man is a consummate perfectionist."

And on musical director James Burn he added: "Who could ask for anyone better and again a consummate musician whose great love in life is musical theatre."

Mr. Wilson believes that if the actors are enjoying themselves, it will be relayed to the audience.

"I always think that if the performers are having fun, then so is the audience, because audiences are so sensitive to what goes on," said Mr. Wilson. "You can recognise a happy show."

Children he said can react in different ways during the panto including his own daughter.

"I remember my daughter when she first came with my wife Linda Smith. Jessie must have been about five and when I came onto the stage with these great boobs and she burst into tears and said, 'is daddy going to bring those home?'

"So at intermission, she got to come out the back and put these foam things on daddy.

"In another panto, I was one of the ugly sisters and I was reaming Cinderella about something, and this little boy in the front row said, 'I hate you!'

"And in pantomime you can't leave that, you have to respond to it, so I turned to my other ugly sister and asked, 'what do we do? So we said, let's go down and eat him.

"And we left the stage and went down and he screamed. We of course came back onto the stage and couldn't remember where we where."

He said the Dame is by no means a drag queen. "What's important is to recognise what a Dame is, you are not a female impersonator dressed up in drag," he said.

"It is not a drag show, you are at all times a man dressed as a woman. And the voice is deep. It is very important, because in the past there have been people in your profession, God bless them, who described the role as being drag. But there is no attempt, the costumes are outrageous and they are meant to look outrageous and you are certainly not meant to look short of what you are a man.

The show continues tonight and tomorrow with two shows.

Show times at 7.30 p.m. nightly and matinee performance on Saturday at 3 p.m. Tickets, costing $30, are available from the Daylesford Theatre Box Office on 292-0848 from noon to 3 p.m. (No telephone bookings at this time) or at City Hall Box Office will be open one hour prior to performances (292 2313).

Tickets can also be found online at www.bmds.bm outside box office hours.