Last time he took to the stage it was as Aladdin, 15 years ago. This Christmas, after a move over to the dark side, he will play evil uncle Abanazar instead. We spoke to Gray O’Brien, aka the baddest boy in soap Tony Gordon.

AS Tony Gordon he’s awaiting trial for the murder of his wife’s secret lover. And as Gray O’Brien he’s singing and dancing wearing a pair of tights in his return to panto.

It’s fair to say a day in the life of the Coronation Street actor is never dull — so much so it’s been two years since he’s had longer than a day off work.

Tony crashed into Weatherfield in 2007 as the new no-nonsense factory boss after appearing in medical dramas Casualty and Peak Practice.

But when he came into The Street Gray had no idea he was to be the next Richard Hillman.

“The first meeting for the part all they said to me was that Tony had ‘an edge.’ That’s all they said,” he laughed. “They never mentioned he was a murderous villain.”

Tony was named ‘Bad Boy’ of 2009 at the All About Soap Bubble awards, and ‘Villain of the Year’ at this year’s British Soap Awards, after explosive storylines which saw his character murder Liam Connor and move in with his widow.

“I’d always been quite a nice guy in anything else I’d done before, “ said the 41-year-old Glaswegian. “Tony was my first bad guy and apparently now I’m typecast. They are very fun roles to play though, I must say.”

And despite being TV’s Mr Evil, Gray hasn't had old ladies hitting him with their handbags in the street. Quite the opposite in fact.

“I expected to have quite a hard time playing Tony Gordon but it’s not been like that at all.

I get so many people stopping me, but not for the reasons you might think. They really enjoy Tony,” said Gray, whose late father Eddie was a religious Corrie fan. “They might say something about being nasty to Maria or something about Roy. But they don’t hate Tony. I think everyone kind of likes him. He’s got a little sparkle. The men like him because it’s OK to kill your fiancee's boyfriend, and women like him because he’s a bit of a bad boy.”

Tony is currently behind bars after confessing all but Gray isn’t giving anything away for what the new year might bring.

It has been reported that he will remain longer in the show than originally planned, and that his contract has been expanded into 2010 for the trial to take place.

Gray said: “I even have no idea what's happening. He’s not dead though, so we’ll have to all wait and see.”

While he’s behind bars on TV look out for a little bit of the evil Tony in the Manchester Opera House pantomime Aladdin, where Grey is currently playing uncle Abanazar.

“I might throw in a bit of the evil stare at some point. And who could resist the odd Coronation Street reference? But he’ll be a lot meaner than Tony.

“It’s going very well. I'm panicking a little bit. It’s been 15 years since I’ve done a panto. I’ve spent so long doing telly and it’s quite different. It’s obviously much bigger and grander, not the small-scale real-life style acting I do on television. So it’s a different technique, which is fun but hard work, and it’s tough to keep up with all these panto people. There’s dancing and singing and lots of lines. It’s quite intensive. Doing Corrie you learn your lines, do them, then forget them, whereas with this you’ve got to retain them for a long period of time and keep them in your head. It’s definitely using a different part of the brain.”

Abanazar, with all his lines etched on his memory, will be scaring the children until early next year when Gray will finally get a well-earned rest.

“I honestly haven’t had any spare time in two years. And it’s time to slow down a bit. My character had a heart attack and it didn’t surprise me but I think it verifies our stressful lifestyles. I do hear of people all the time my age who have heart attacks. We just live beyond our means as a nation and the stress gets us.

“I keep myself fit I do train and watch what I eat. In the new year I’d like to spend more time hill walking and reading and I play the guitar. At the moment any time off I spend with my son, Connor. We hang out at weekends. In the new year we’ll do more of those things together.”

l Aladdin is at the Opera House, Manchester, until January 3. For tickets contact the box office on 0844 847 2277.