ELAINE C Smith has spoken of the decision to postpone pantos in Glasgow this year and revealed she couldn’t have lived with herself if an audience member took ill after a show.

The Baillieston-born actress, 62, spoke to STV’s Scotland Tonight from the King’s Theatre in the city where she was due to play the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella.

She said: “Maybe because I’m just old and I’ve been doing it a long time and I haven’t had a proper Christmas in 25 years, I had a feeling in my waters it wasn’t going to happen.

“I’ve been quite shocked by how I feel coming in, and what this has meant to me for all these years. The thought of those theatres, those great palaces of entertainment, being shut for so long...

“But I don’t know whether I would have liked to have done a show to a third-full King’s [Theatre] either, because the audience are panto.

“I don’t think I could have lived with myself had someone taken ill or died because they came to a theatre to see a show. I don’t think anybody could.”

She added: “There’s a part of [pantomime] that’s intrinsically Scottish for me. It pokes fun at power. It allows love to always win and a bit of light to go out into the world.

“Glaswegians love to laugh. They tell you if it’s not funny very quickly as well. But I discovered the same in Aberdeen – they love to laugh, and so you really have to get it badly wrong if they’re not laughing and applauding.”

The show has been rescheduled to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

You can watch Elaine’s interview here https://player.stv.tv/summary/scotland-tonight*