Christmas in the UK means panto season! David has performed in several pantos early in his career. He was a member of the chorus in his University panto in 1990 - Jack in the Beanstalk.
His first professional panto was staged at the Edinburgh Royal Lyceum from December 13, 1991 to January 4, 1992. This marked the premiere performance of Shinda the Magic Ape written by Stuart Paterson and co-directed by Richard Baron and Hugh Hodgart. Richard would direct David another four times including his award winning performance in Look Back in Anger.
David played Kenny the boy who frees Shinda.
Synopsis from The Herald - December 17, 1991:
"The powers of good -- as embodied in the magician, Coran -- are
waning: there simply isn't enough concern for others or simple goodness in our society to sustain them. And all Scarab the witch needs to bring the world into her realm of hopeless darkness is to turn one young heart black with greed before the approaching full moon. Danny, the teenager she fastens on, is very much a child of our times.
Not intrinsically bad but desperate to ''make it'' in terms of those
material things which now seem to count for everything. Scarab turns him into an invincible master thief and as the moon approaches fullness, Danny's heart becomes calloused with greed. Who will save him? For that matter who will save us? His kindly, generous spirited wee brother, Kenny? Or Granny who has loved them and looked after them for most of their lives?"
"Kenny, and Granny and Kenny's friends as well, are all desperately willing to do anything to rescue Danny, they, themselves, might not be proof against an evil which thrives on that very human capacity for covetousness and unyielding self-interest.
Who, or what, then, can avert the total collapse of the world into a
wasteland of consuming greed? Shinda, the African gorilla whom Kenny, in a sudden fit of compassion, frees from the local zoo. (He plans, somehow, to get Shinda back to his native wilds!)
Only Shinda can overthrow Scarab because the coin of her control --possessing souped-up convertibles, designer shell suits, CD players, and loadsamoney -- have no relevance to him whatsoever. All Shinda wants is freedom and a chance to survive within, not at the expense of, Nature."