WHILE the rest of us are looking forward to taking down the decorations tomorrow, the stars of panto and other Christmas shows still have another three weeks of festive cheer to enjoy.

For Alan Stocks, this will be spent playing Father O’Flaherty in the Royal Court’s Little Scouse on the Prairie – his third time in the role.

The Irish Catholic priest was introduced in Fred Lawless’s first Christmas show, Merry Merry Ding Dong, which was such a hit that the theatre commissioned the playwright to create a sequel. When 2010’s Scouse Pacific was extended due to popular demand, Lawless’s was brought back for a third instalment.

This time, Stocks plays both Father O’Flaherty and his Shaolin priest alter-ego, who appears in a Wizard of Oz-style dream sequence set in the Wild West.

“It’s always good fun,” he says. “The Christmas shows have been a big success, partly because they’ve hit on a really good combination of actors who are constantly coming up with new ideas and know how to make comedy work.

“We’re like Liverpool’s unofficial rep company.”

The year 2011 was a busy one for Stocks, who co-starred alongside Con O’Neill in Robert Farquhar’s Dead Heavy Fantastic – as well as touring with the Playhouse’s Tartuffe by Moliere and Roger McGough.

This year, projects will include Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, also at the Liverpool Playhouse.

“Dead Heavy Fantastic was a lovely play to be allowed to have a go at,” he says. “When you get to 40 and you’re not a leading man, as such, you don’t play heroic roles, you try and find a niche for yourself.

“I’ve been lucky enough so far to be able to go from high comedy at the Royal Court to quite naturalist leads at the Everyman.”

LITTLE Scouse on the Prairie is at the Royal Court until January 21.