As well as starring in and writing the show at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen – where he has, arguably, been Scotland’s finest pantomime dame of recent times, below – he has, since 1998, also been writing the scripts for the Christmas offerings at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy and, throughout the noughties, for the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.

This year, the versatile thespian and author goes one better. Not only does he join Elaine C Smith in his own Cinderella in Aberdeen (he’s one of the Ugly Sisters), but, in addition to his regular writing credits at Kirkcaldy (Pinocchio) and the RSAMD (Sleeping Beauty), he has written the script for the prestigious Christmas show at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.

The Citz Cinderella is, McHugh emphasises, a very different kettle of fish from the traditional panto he has written for Aberdeen. “We’re doing an ethereal, magical, Stuart Paterson-style version of Cinderella,” he explains. The reference to Paterson – legendary author of Christmas shows for Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum and Dundee Rep, among other theatres – is significant. Paterson’s trademark is classy, child-centred, funny and story-driven, shows which eschew much of the old music hall element associated with the traditional pantomime.

“It’s a family show, geared towards kids, but it’s not in-your-face panto,” McHugh says of the Citz production. “There are no full-on ugly sisters, there’s no Buttons, there’s no sweetie throwing. We’ve used the Grimm Brothers’ story as the starting point, while keeping it funny and upbeat.”

Which is not, of course, to say that McHugh is denigrating the traditional Scottish pantomime. How could he? As actor and writer he has done more, perhaps, than anyone to reinvigorate a Scottish panto tradition which many people thought had all but disappeared when Stanley Baxter hung up his frocks.

Ironically, many people held McHugh’s employer, Qdos Entertainment (the massive Scarborough-based pantomime juggernaut, which produces shows across the UK, including at HMT in Aberdeen and the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh) responsible for killing the traditional Scottish panto. The writer acknowledges that Aberdonian audiences were not being best served by “English scripts, generic Qdos, run-of-the-mill scripts, which were written for Eastbourne and Crawley”. That’s why, in the early years of the decade, he began adapting the off-the-peg Qdos scripts to give them a more Aberdonian flavour.

So successful were his adaptations – which were full of cries of “fit like-ee”, which definitely didn’t appear in the Scarborough-approved originals – that McHugh was asked, two years ago, to write entirely new scripts for HMT. The result this year, he says, is “a completely Scottish, Doric-flavoured script, which is nothing like any of the English versions of Cinderella that Qdos will be doing.”

McHugh acknowledges that he has been “writing to order” for the new leading lady at HMT. “I’m putting in things that Elaine C wants, things that I wouldn’t normally put in a panto. However, I still think my main job is to find a way of incorporating these additions into the story. Although the Cinderellas in Aberdeen and at the Citz are totally different shows, what they have in common is that the story runs from start to finish, and we never lose that.”

Alan McHugh’s Cinderellas are at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, November 28-January 2, 0141 429 0022, www.citz.co.uk; and His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, November 28-January 3, 01224 641122, www.boxofficeaberdeen.com

At Christmas time the Scottish stage boasts the good, the bad and the ugly (sisters), but no playhouse offers such an unremittingly crazy production as Glasgow’s Tron Theatre. Whether it’s Forbes Masson’s unforgettable subversions of yuletide favourites (such as Weans In The Wood and Aladdie) or, more recently, the pastiche pantomimes of Gordon Dougall and Fletcher Mathers (Mother Bruce and Eeting Beauty), the Tron’s Christmas show has become a raucously hilarious tradition unto itself.

This year’s production, Ya Beauty And The Beast, looks set to be no different. As ever, the show features an array of pleasing preposterous characters, ranging from former beauty queen Bunty Beautox (Andy Clark, who recently played Iago in Othello at the Citizens Theatre, now in heels and drag) to cheesy bad guy Barfolemew Beastie (trumpet-playing Tron favourite George Drennan). Add outrageous costumes and sets by uber-designer Kenny Miller and luxuriously ludicrous musical numbers by Dougall and Mathers, and you have the most distinctive show in the Scottish pantosphere.

So, what’s the secret of the Tron Theatre’s success? “A lot of the credit has to go to Michael Boyd,” says Dougall of the current artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and founding director of the Tron in 1985.

“Michael had an odd slant on how to direct things, and the Tron Christmas show style developed through that. There was Jimmy Chisholm, Forbes Masson, Alan Cumming, Craig Ferguson and people like that all working together, and everyone in that team had a kind of leftfield sense of humour. We were doffing our caps to all the great Scottish comedians in the variety theatre, whilst also subverting that tradition.”

It also helps, says Dougall, that his co-writer Fletcher Mathers has her own history in traditional Scottish panto, working with the legendary Stanley Baxter at Glasgow’s King’s Theatre. It is 20 years since Dougall’s first Tron Christmas show, Peter And Penny’s Panto (for which Alex Norton, latter day star of Taggart, wrote the script with Dougall as musical director). With so many years of sending up Scottish panto traditions, it’s hardly surprising that Dougall feels he and Mathers have become something of a tradition themselves: “We’ve got to a stage where we’re trying to subvert ourselves now.”

Ya Beauty And The Beast is at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, November 28-January 3, 0141 552 4267, www.tron.co.uk