Kevin Guthrie, 21, of Neilston, will take the lead role in a major production of Peter Pan set to tour Scotland and go on to a prestigious London theatre.

Rehearsals for the National Theatre of Scotland start soon and Kevin’s first task will be learning to fly like the fantasy favourite.

He said: “As a kid everybody wants to learn to fly so it’s going to be an amazing experience.

“Kirsty Mackay, who plays Wendy, and I are going to London for two weeks to learn – there’s some sort of technique we’re using which is supposed to be the least restrictive type of flying you can do at the moment. It’s going to be a good challenge.

“I feel absolutely delighted and honoured to be part of something so big.”

The former pupil of St Luke’s High School in Barrhead hasn’t finished drama school yet.

He’s in his second year studying for an acting degree at Glasgow’s Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama – the school that has churned out big names including former Doctor Who David Tennant.

Professor John Wallace, Principal of RSAMD, called Kevin’s landing of the role so early in his career a “significant feat”.

Kevin, of East Renfrewshire, confessed he only got into acting because his mum and dad Louise, 47, and Gordon, 50, sent him to PACE theatre company in Paisley at the age of six, along with sisters Lyndsay, 26, a social worker, and Lauren, 23, now a vet.

They thought theatre would help combat the shyness he suffered as a child.

Kevin stayed with the group until he was 17, and went on to graduate from Langside College’s HND Acting and Performance course.

He sailed through four auditions to win the Neverland role.

Dad Gordon, an electrician, said: “We are absolutely delighted. We didn’t realise what a big part it was until he told us what was involved.

“He always said the two parts he would most like to play would be Peter Pan and James Bond and now he’s got one conquered, with a wee bit of luck maybe he will get the other one!”

Kevin also appeared in school productions including Grease, but he admits he had to be persuaded away from the football field by his drama teacher Amanda Gracie.

He said: “When I was 12 Bugsy Malone was the first school show. It was more football and being with my mates for me. At first I wasn’t too keen. She said ‘I want you to audition’ and she offered me the part of Bugsy. I had a ball and I realised acting was something I should be thinking about.”

Amanda said: “We are very pleased about Peter Pan. He always had it in him – he just needed a bit of pushing!”

Kevin, who now lives in Glasgow city centre, has already had some TV success, appearing as Winston’s grandchild in comedy show Still Game aged 16, as well as BBC kids programme Half Moon Investigations plus an Irn-Bru advert three years ago.

He eventually hopes to get into films.

Peter Pan will open in the spring in Glasgow before touring the country and visiting London’s Barbican Theatre.

Set in Victorian Edinburgh, it is a spectacular new version of the classic JM Barrie tale by acclaimed writer David Greig and will mark the 150th anniversary of Barrie’s birth in Angus.

John Tiffany, who will direct the show, said: “I want to re-imagine Peter Pan as a Scottish boy – born out of the landscape and mythology that would have shaped JM Barrie as he grew up.

“Kevin has that rare mercurial quality as well as incredible musical and physical abilities that this production will demand of him.”

Hook will be played by Cal MacAninch who has been in TV shows including Wild At Heart and Silent Witness.

The National Theatre of Scotland was set up in 2006 and stages shows at venues across the country. Its biggest hit has been Black Watch, the acclaimed play about soldiers in Iraq, which has toured the world.

Producers promise the new production, in conjunction with barbicanbite10, will feature “sword fights, flying sequences, acrobats, fire-eaters, the usual ticking crocodile and one great big hook.”

It opens at Glasgow’s King’s Theatre on April 23.

Kevin is not the only young Scot carving out a successful stage career.

As reported in the Evening Times his classmate Colin Harris, 24, from Rutherglen landed a part in football film The Damned United straight from Langside College.

Plus Stephen Ashfield, 30, from Glasgow’s East End is starring in West End musical Jersey Boys, while former Apollo Payers am-dram group member Vivienne Carlyle, 37, from Waterfoot, East Renfrewshire, will return home next month as the leading lady in a tour of Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers.

For Peter Pan tickets call 0844 971 7648 or visit www.ambassadortickets.com/king’s-theatre