A normal night out in the Toun? Not so. This is a driech Monday morning, the honest folk of Musselburgh are still queuing dolefully at the counters outside to do their council business and instead of the chink of glasses and buzz of gossip, the bar is silent. Where you would expect the sweet smell of tonic and Coke to combine with the hint of a pre-theatre snifter of whisky, the air is heavy with the stench of paint and glue.

That glitz and glitter comes not from the baubles and dresses of the theatre audience, they won't be arriving for another four days, but belongs to the large pieces of half-finished set which lie strewn about the floor of the bar, like some giant's jigsaw puzzle from Jack in the Beanstalk.

This is the Brunton as it is rarely seen by the public. The Brunton getting ready for its biggest single annual event - the Musselburgh pantomime.

This year, a specially written version of Sleeping Beauty, staged by Edinburgh's Emerald Blue production company, continuing their association with the theatre into its third year after hits with Dick McWhittington in 2006 and last year's Cinderella. Ducking through into a space littered with scraps of dog-eared script covered in pencil scrawls, and set around with ropes leading up into the darkness above, Emerald Blue's artistic director reaches up to pat a large green object on what might easily be taken for its front end.

"Say 'Hello' to Nessie," he says, with a wink, and marches out onto the stage. Suddenly you can feel the heat from the lights shimmering off those bits of the scenery that have already been put into place.
It is only four days and eight hours before the first paying punters will see the sparkling new pantomime at Friday's preview, yet the show has only just begun to get on the road.

The theatre's light board has been moved down into the seats and the lighting director is patiently going through the whole production, scene by scene, setting the lights. On stage, a youth mopes patiently moving from one spotlit area to the next.

Suddenly a lone voice pipes up: "Dave, can we lose the trellis please?" Magically, a gaudily painted affair rises up into the air from the back of the stage to be lost from sight above.

"Dave, are you on headset?" pipes up the voice once more. And the mysterious Dave - a practitioner in the arcane art of the flyman, without whom nothing can be raised or lowered onto the stage - obviously is. For with a tad more mumbling, multi-coloured gauzes and back-clothes depicting Musselburgh High Street are soon dancing as more lights are dimmed, set and the sequence recorded in the computer to be replicated at every performance.

Just behind the stage, where cheerful laughs and groans are coming from the dressing rooms, the cast are using the time to run through their lines.

The longest-serving member of the cast is Arron Usher. The 30-year-old Edinburgh actor has appeared in no less than eight pantomimes at the Brunton and his daffy-wee redhead character has made him a well-kent face around the town - even outside panto.

This year he plays Daft Jamie McCrimmon, son of Dame Nanny Nellie McCrimmon. So will it be business as usual?

"Oh, no!" he says with a grin. "I'm not using the wee small voice any more. And I get a girl this year! That's really good because it is nice to have someone else to play off.

"Also, I have a lot more to do with the Dame this year. It is nice to have that relationship and also to have a really good storyline to go with it. Jodie, who plays Ruby who my character falls in love with, is new to the Brunton and she's great."

Now on his fifth time as Dame and his third with the company, Graham Crammond agrees that not everything will be as expected in this Sleeping Beauty.

"This pantomime is different in that we have got all sorts of mad things in it, like the Loch Ness Monster and a puppet that is a haggis, which is a bit weird in Sleeping Beauty," he says with deadpan under-statement.

"What is lovely about this panto is that it is always local," he adds, in surprisingly serious mode for a man who normally has his audience in laughter.

"I think that's what makes it work down here so well. They always write a strong Mussel-burgh script and the audiences feel quite special because it is geared towards them. That is quite a magical thing - it's not done often."

Like all good pantomimes, the Brunton also succeeds in keeping its topical gags and references right up to date, as Crammond reveals when he talks about his character Nurse Nellie's role this year.

"I run a hotel that is making no money, so we are bankrupt," he says. "I have to find extra money and because of the credit crunch I will try any job. That is basically what I do, I appear in different guises, trying different jobs, desperate to make money."

Also returning to the Brunton is Edinburgh-born Julie Heatherill, who first appeared there as Cinderella last year. This year she gets to be Sleeping Beauty - or Sally as she is known down Musselburgh way. And even though the company has only had one day on the set, she can't wait to get in front of an audience.

"It makes such a difference when you have the audience in, shouting back at you," she reveals. "Especially the kids. The ten o'clock shows when we have the schools in are just awesome because they get so involved and they scream back at you. It instantly lifts the energy that extra bit."

Also returning for a second year is Stuart Ryan, who plays wicked witch Grizzlebone's side-kick, Wart. The 22 year-old, originally from North Berwick, is completely unfazed at such a lowly role. Not only was the Brunton his local theatre as a child, but his holiday job when at drama school was as an usher there.

"The biggest transition for me is going to the other side, being on the stage," he says. " I love it because it is a nice size for a smaller theatre and everyone is really friendly.

"It's not intimidating being so close to the audience. For panto it has to be that intimate because you use audiences as another character. Interacting with them just makes it more fun and exciting - a lot of the time we even venture into the audience and are cutting along rows!

So there is no barrier between audience and stage." Although 30-year-old Jodie Campbell is making her first professional trip to the Brunton, the Edinburgh actress who plays Ruby, keeper of the Loch Ness Monster, reveals that this will not be her first appearance on its stage.

"As a child I used to compete at the Brunton, doing Scottish country dancing," she recalls, adding with a force that indicates an injustice long-mulled over, "We got robbed of the title by Trinity Primary.

"I went to Hermitage Park Primary and we were all convinced that we had won but we didn't. So I remember very vividly coming down here for the Scottish country dancing!"

Given that Ruby has come down to Musselburgh to save her Nessie from Grizzlebone's magic spell, here's hoping Jodie won't get robbed again. But given that she's Daft Jamie's love-interest, one suspects that when the Honest Folk don their own baubles and glitter for Saturday night's gala opening, and push through those swing doors, all will be right in their very own local panto-land.

Sleeping Beauty, Brunton Theatre, Ladywell Way, tonight - Saturday January 3, 7pm (7.30pm from December 5), matinees 2pm, £10-£15, 0131-665 2240