TRUE to panto tradition I found myself shouting “It’s behind you!” – as Gok Wan narrowly escaped stepping back into a pile of pony poo!

The TV star and style guru was guiding Cinderella and her sweeping ball gown through the muddy puddles for a photo shoot on a rain-lashed horse-drawn carriage.

The fashion fixer who found fame on shows like How to Look Good Naked and now presents on ITV’s This Morning switched on the festive sparkle despite the inclement weather, with a broad smile and a suit of silver as cameras captured the panto season launch.

Minutes later, in the shelter of The Mayflower theatre – where Gok stars alongside Brian Conley in Cinderella, the celebrity stylist laughed off the cold, wet and windy photo shoot: “Look at this rain- talk about ruining the fairytale!”

“Showbusiness isn’t as glamorous as it looks?” I asked, somewhat rhetorically.

“Never!” he assured me. “It’s hard work – a lot of hard graft. It’s often a plate of curled up sandwiches but it’s a lot of fun. What’s really nice is you meet people like Brian who have been doing this for years and everything is just normal. Then as soon as the lights are switched on and the glamour needs to be brought in everyone just does that on cue.”

continued on page 30 Gok’s working day often starts around 6am and the hours are long.

“It’s always very busy but it’s better to be busy than quiet. ‘This Morning’ is taking up quite a lot of time; and then it’s fitting in all my normal work with meetings and stuff so it’s pretty much minimum 12 hour days and it’s quite often than not five to six days a week.

"There’s a lot of people work long hours like this but with me every two hours is a slightly different job so it’s wearing a different hat from presenter to designer to consultant to whatever, charity worker to panto person “.

But for Gok, now aged 40, variety truly is the spice of life.

“I like the difference in my life. I would be really bored if it was the same every single day. I do like it – I have the best job in the world and I wouldn’t change it for anything. There isn’t anything out there that I would like to do better.”

He admits that being creative can have its pressures.

“Some days you might be writing and you can’t find the words, or you’re designing and you can’t find inspiration and get it out but if you only have that day to get that contract finished then that’s really tough. Then there are certain aspects of my job I can do and it doesn’t matter what day it is: in particular styling and also presenting, those two come to me very naturally while other aspects of my job take a little bit more thought really.”

Daily Echo:

Pantomime was a brand new challenge for Gok last year and his experience became the subject of a Channel 4 documentary.

“It was lots of fun; I fell in love with it. I’ve always loved panto and the theatre; I go to the theatre a lot and panto was a huge part of my Christmas growing up and family getting together. It’s a real skill – an art form, a different breed to any other sort of theatre and something that is very British; we have great loyalty to panto because there’s a handful of stories that get shown around the theatres every Christmas, everyone knows the stories, the characters and even the one liners but they will still go and spend their money and that is the loyalty for the art form.”

And then you’ve got greats in the industry- people like Brian and Gary Wilmott and people that have done panto for years and just know it inside out. So last year I learned a lot and this year I’m probably going to learn even more than that with Brian because I come in with a slightly more experience so will take on more this year.”

And what does Gok think he will bring to it?

“Hopefully I bring a campness which I know a lot of people out there could bring but a lot of people know me; I‘ve done television for ten years and I play myself on television: my language, my catch phrases, my tone, my intonation, people know that already, and my sensibility I suppose: hopefully I bring it up to date and give it a contemporary edge which is very relevant. For instance, I give Cinderella, a make-over: it just makes absolute sense because when you think about it Cinderella is one of the most iconic make-overs of all time as she is transformed from one person to another, rags to riches.”

Despite the dramatic makeover Gok has not had a say in the costumes at all. As for the acting, he says: “I am playing the ‘Fairy Gok Mother’ – I am playing myself, so it needs to be as realistic and as personal as possible. All my catch phrases will be in the script and lots of references to programmes and breasts probably!”

Is it a big leap from what he has done before?

“Yes, it’s a huge challenge. Last year I got very nervous, I got very scared. The singing always terrifies me but it’s amazing, you walk away from an experience like that and you think everyone has an opportunity to face a massive challenge and conquer a fear like that every day. It only makes you a stronger person and I get the opportunity to do it within the remit of my job “.

Life, of course, hasn’t always been plain sailing for Gok. He has been very open about his early life – discussing details of his childhood obesity, being bullied, anorexia, depression, growing up on a council estate in Leicester and being gay.

His original ambition in life was to become an actor. He did three years at performing arts school and then moved to London to study drama at the prestigious Central School of Speech & Drama, but dropped out after a year.

Living in a bedsit, he says he could barely afford to live, even though he had a job in a takeaway. This was one of the reasons why he started in fashion as a hair and make-up artist as he wanted to ‘get out of a rut’.

But he adds: “It was always my ambition to be an actor. I kind of fell into fashion which I’m so grateful for. I suppose I’ve come full circle – I’ve spent 20 years coming back to where I was: it’s weird – it’s been the longest sabbatical!”