Janine turns to the dark side for this year's Worthing panto

But this year things are different. Last year she was Maid Marion. This year she is the Evil Baroness in Cinderella (Pavilion Theatre, December 4-January 4, tickets on wtm.uk).

“It is so wonderful to be back. You get taken to so many different places when you are working but I absolutely loved being here last year. It's so fantastic to be by the sea and the view that you get from the theatre. Even in the rehearsal room you're looking out at the sea. And we just had the most amazing time last year… but it just doesn't seem a year ago. When we started this time we were just saying it felt like three months since we were doing it! I don't know where this year has gone!”

Part of the fun though this year is to be doing something different. Last year Janine was Maid Marion. This year she is evil: “And that's so much fun. You get so much audience interaction when you are playing one of the evil characters. I've got a lot of scenes with the step sisters, and it is really fun. They are the fun silly comedy and I am the more serious comedy and together we get to explore that dynamic. We get to play around with it.

“But the great thing is that she is so mean. She's so horrible not just to Cinderella but to the step sisters as well. It's about finding the truth of that. It's about finding where it comes from. She is very self-obsessed and she's very self-absorbed certainly with what she looks like and with her appearance. But there are moments when you see the softer side to her. There's a really magic moment when that comes through, and at the end of course she is reformed. You have to have a happy ending, don't you! And I think you have to believe in that. You have to believe that she is now a good person. She's pretty nasty but she repents at the end of the journey really because there's nowhere else for her to turn. She has really pushed everyone away and the only option is to see the error of her ways and just to recognise that Cinderella has won and that Cinderella has deserved to win.

“But does she really change for the good? That's the question that you've got to ask yourself. You've got to have that cliffhanger!"

Panto was one of Janine's first professional jobs after she graduated: “It is such an incredible way for people to start their career and to learn their craft. It is hard work. You have a short rehearsal period and then a really gruelling schedule. But it's a wonderful way to learn what you're doing and to see what other people are doing who have been in the business for a lot longer than you have. I started 20 years ago and I've done panto more or less every year since then over those 20 years. I absolutely love panto. It's just so much fun and it's such a family feeling. In a short space of time you put on a full-scale production and you have to really work hard as a team. But because I've been doing it for so long it is just such a part of Christmas for me. I had a couple of years off but it just felt so wrong. I just didn't know what to do with myself!”