Playing Muddles in panto won’t be a giant leap for Ricky Groves, who spent 10 years portraying the tangled ups and downs of Garry Hobbs in EastEnders.

Beauty and the Beast opens at the Theatre Royal Margate on Saturday, December 13 for a relatively short run until Sunday, December 28.

The show represents Ricky’s first return to Margate since day trips as a child.

“I’m from Walthamstow originally, and I remember going down to Margate as a kid,” said Ricky, 46.

“It’s changed so much. There is a magic about the seaside for kids and that fits nicely with panto. The Theatre Royal Margate is a fantastic little venue. It’s a great panto, Beauty and the Beast. We’re really going to have a good run, it’s going to be fun.”

Ricky has fond memories, too, of seeing panto as a child himself.

“My mum and dad weren’t theatre people, but I remember going to see Mother Goose, which sticks in my mind.”

These days, Ricky lives in Cambridgeshire, where he moved 10 years ago.

“I’d lived in London all my life, and a lot of people do that emigration thing to the country side. And people from the countryside tend to want to move into town, where there’s a shop on the corner instead of having to drive five miles for a pint of milk,” he says.

Reacquainting himself with Margate all these years later is a treat Ricky’s been looking forward to, so look out for him exploring the beach and town.

“When you’re an actor, you live out of a suitcase really, with tours and things like that. When you’re somewhere for a period like a month, it’s a bit of an adventure. You’ve got your own front door somewhere and you get the chance to go and see places, it’s not all work, work, work,” he says.

“There are some days when there’s only an evening performance or a matinee performance, so you can go exploring. I do like a good walk round. The old Margate area I saw briefly the other day looks lovely.”

PANTO VS. EASTENDERS

Ricky will have a much busier Christmas in panto than he ever had in EastEnders, when he would enjoy a two-week break from filming. Yet he’s relishing the opportunity.

“EastEnders had to always give people a couple of weeks off, it’s not just for the actors but the crews. Normally they start off the year maybe four or five weeks ahead, then at Christmas they’d try and get ahead by six weeks. I think on Albert Square now the Christmas stuff is filmed around the end of November.

“Years ago, contractually what used to happen was that sometimes the bigger pullers like Barbara Windsor or Steve McFadden, who had been working hard all year, would say, ‘Can we have Christmas off?’ I think now they’re all allowed to go out to panto. It’s something I missed out on really, I was always working on the Christmas episodes. I would like to have done [panto], because it is good fun.”

WALFORD BOY

Ricky left EastEnders in 2009, when his character, Garry, sailed off into the sunset on a canal barge following an emotional reunion with girlfriend Dawn Swann, played by Kara Tointon.

Did it come as a loss to leave the show after a decade?

“It’s a funny one, really. It was a good nine/ten years of my life and, being in a show for that length of time, I think I did 800-odd episodes,” says Ricky, who was married in 2005 to his fellow cast member Hannah Waterman, who played Laura Beale, but separated in 2010.

“It gave you the opportunity to go out and do other stuff; if I hadn’t have left I wouldn’t have done Strictly Come Dancing [Ricky was in series seven with professional dancer Erin Boag, making it to week 10], the plays I’ve toured with, that sort of thing.

“You work very closely with people on EastEnders and I’m still very friendly with Cliff Parisi (Minty Peterson), Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell) and Perry Fenwick (Billy Mitchell).”

Beauty and the Beast is at the Theatre Royal Margate from Saturday, December 13 until Sunday, December 28. Tickets cost from £10. Visit www.theatreroyalmargate.com or call 01843 292795.