Vernon Kay has spoken ahead of his pantomime debut which will take place over the Christmas period at the Wycombe Swan.

The TV and Radio star will play Dandini in Cinderella admitting that performing locally was a big draw to him taking on the role.

Discussing the reasoning behind the decision, Kay said performing so close to home meant he will still be able to live a normal day-to-day life and continue to perform tasks such as dropping his daughters off at school.

He said: “I have never done it before and the reason I am doing it is that we are an avid pantomime family in our house. The kids were like you have to do panto if you ever get asked.

“I happened to get asked and they heard Tess [Daly] and I talking it and they were like you have to do it.

“The fact that it is local panto makes it even better, two performances a day but I’ll be in bed by 10. Either that or I will be in Yates down the road!”

Since the news broke of his appearance in this year’s panto, he has proven popular at the school gates with other parents and friends looking for tickets to the show that runs from December 9 until New Year’s Eve.

“The worst thing about doing it locally is everyone you know in the village wants tickets and I’m like listen this panto doesn’t pay for itself!

“We are blocking in a lot of dates in the diary for our daughter’s friends. I don’t mind the requests, the more friends and family we can bring the better.

“Time is very precious these days, everything moves so fast, so if they can come and spend two hours and watch me make a fool of myself then brilliant.

The former Family Fortunes host also revealed that the show will not shy away from the usual pantomime quips as well as playing up to his game show past.

He continued: “Our ugly sisters are awesome, we have one from Essex and one from Liverpool and obviously being pantomime we are going to stereotype with those two accents which will be funny.

“I think that’s what pantomime allows you to do. Some people will say you are stereotyping people but it's panto so yes of course we are.

“There will be a lot of northern from Dandini, there will be lots of Bolton references. Peter Kay’s name will come up several times I have no doubt.

“The beauty of this one is we don’t have an actual set, we don’t have a set that people wheel on and wheel off. It’s amazing, it is all LEDs.

“I do have a penchant for games shows and because we have LED shows, the audience participation will be something along the lines of a game show.

Looking for advice from his friends and colleagues, Kay reached out to his I’m a Celebrity co-star Shane Richie as well as pantomime mainstay Brian Conley.

He added: “They have all said the same thing, that you just have to enjoy it because there are a lot of people there who have paid good money to watch a show for two hours and they want to walk away with a smile on their face.

“Everyone has said enjoy it, don’t worry about the mistakes and make sure you learn the words for the song because Shane said there is nothing worst than stopping a song halfway through and starting again.

“I have no intentions of doing that, let it play and I will catch up!”

To see how Vernon Kay does in his pantomime debut this Christmas visit the Wycombe Swan website here to see full ticket details.