THERE doesn’t seem to be anything remotely dastardly about Mark Moraghan in real life, but when it comes to his career he tends to favour baddies.

That’s recently anyway – he is currently playing Abanazar, Aladdin’s arch-enemy in the Liverpool Empire’s panto, not long after the role of bad-tempered Briggs in Our Day Out.

“The way I play him is a bit like Terry-Thomas,” the 47-year-old former Holby City actor says of the evil wizard.

“He’s a cad. Dick Dastardly. He’s fun to play and you can go right over the top with it.

“It’s a character kids can really relate to and boo and throw stuff at. The louder the boos, the happier I’ll be.”

Moraghan, who has had no shortage of local parts, despite upping sticks from his native Liverpool to Kent, has been Abanazar before – at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal with fellow Scouser Claire Sweeney.

This time, however, he’s sharing the stage with ex-Baywatch beauty Pamela Anderson as the genie of the lamp.

“I went to pantos here a couple of times as a kid,” says Moraghan, “but I can’t remember what they were.