HE'S MORE natural than porridge.

More refreshing than an ice enema. He's untrained - and totally unconcerned about acting convention.

And if a panto producer doesn't sign up River City's new star Grado this year then my name's Snow White.

Grado, who began life as Graeme Stevely, never planned on becoming an actor. Growing up in Stevenston, his big love was wrestling.

But now the young man who plays Buster (a wrestler, funnily enough) in the BBC soap, manages to combine both, thanks to being discovered on a BBC Scotland documentary featuring the cult of Insane Championship Wrestling,

"I'm choking to get panto," he says, smiling. "I've heard what Michelle McManus gets paid. And you only have to do it for a few weeks of the year. It's magic - and I'm totally up for it."

Grado wore his mum's cycling shorts and a white T-shirt when he first took part in competitive wrestling in Greenock Town Hall in 2004.

But such was his pulling power, television couldn't help but notice him and he went on to win a place on American TV show TNA Impact's British Boot Camp.

Since then, the Comedy Unit snapped him up to appear in BBC Scotland's Scot Squad, and Robert Florence and Iain Connell's pilot, The Sunny.

Yet, he's taking it all in his stride.

"The first Insane Fight Club documentary has been getting great attention," says the unassuming 26 year-old.

"I've been seen right across the UK. "It was amazing to go down south and be stopped at a petrol station in Bolton and be recognised."

Amazingly, Grado has had no acting experience whatsoever. He's a natural performer.

"I guess wrestling is entertainment though," he offers, smiling. "Although when I was in Primary Five I did play Bob Cratchett in A Christmas Carol at Saltcoats Town Hall.

"And ever since I was young I'd perform. I'd get the Hoover out and stick a fake microphone on the top of it and do wee shows for the family.

And my teachers thought I was a performer, the class clown. The jester. Maybe that's why my report cards used to say 'Easily Distracted.'"

He adds, grinning; "My girlfriend has always told me to stop carrying on but I liked to wind her up and say 'Naw, I'm going to be on the telly one day!' And now I am.

"Now I tell her; 'Look, I've nailed it. I'm down at the River City studio (in Dumbarton) The Hollywood of Scotland."

I'm guessing Grado didn't get picked on too much at school, even though he was never far from the limelight?

"Picked on? Not me, man," he says, laughing. "I was always wrestling. I could look after myself."

He was wrestling daft. Aged twelve, he'd set up a wrestling ring in his garden made up of washing rope and the old mattresses he'd collect from going round the doors.

"I loved it out there," he says, beaming in recall. "I'd wrestle all day, rolling about wearing nothing but my Asda George breeks.

"Then when I wrestled indoors I broke beds. My bed, my granny's bed. My uncle's bed. I just kept on breaking beds."

The bed breaking paid off. By 2004 he was fighting professionally. But at five ten he doesn't look like a typical wrestler.

"I know," he says, laughing. "But that's what I love about it. People go to the wrestling and see all these six foot five blokes with their long black hair and six packs - and here's me with the man boobs and double chin.

"I don't go to the gym as much as others and I eat a load of rubbish. But I like to think when fans see behind the barrier they think I'm Everyman.

"They think I represent them, the ordinary people and I think that's really cool."

Does he get hurt?

"Oh aye. I got my head shaved in December because I was peed 'aff gelling it everyone morning, but the hair cut reminded me of the huge scar I have on my skull, the result of being hit with a steel chair while wrestling in Ardrossan Civic Centre.

"I've broken ribs, had black eyes, the lot. But it's all part of it.

"The most physical I get though is stamping on toes and poking eyes. That's about it."

Grado, who's wrestling at the Hydro later this month, loved his wrestling stint in America, coming out to Madonna's Like A Prayer, giving a dance performance that made Mohammed Ali look under-confident. (Check it out on social media).

"You could hear the crowd groan and yell, 'Who is this little fat guy?' But I won them over. At the end, the crowd were yelling 'Grado! Grado!'

Now he is more than handling himself on television, forming the perfect partnership with Leah MacRae. Move over Jack and Vera.

But did he find it tough to adjust to that world.?

"When they sent me the script it was just before I went to Cyprus on holiday and I never really looked at it because I ended up getting blootered every night.

"Then I opened it and saw all these words and I thought I'd never remember them. But the likes of Stephen Purdon and Sally Howitt helped me work through the lines."

"And I think I work well under pressure."

It's easier than being battered with steel chairs. But how does he cope with the new attention?

"I still go into the same boozers," he says. "But all I hear now is my catchphrase 'It's yersel!' And I don't get challenged. I just get knuckles rubbed in my head from strangers, and maybe a couple of digs in the ribs."

Grado has certainly taken to television.

"I'd maybe like to have a go at presenting," he says. "I could mucker up wi' Jackie Bird, at Hogmanay, but then I don't know if I could handle a' the deedley-dee music going on."

And there's panto of course. He'd be great.

"Maybe I could be Buttons," he says, excitedly before adding; "But maybe I'm too chubby to be Buttons, is he not always a slim chap?"

Not always. Buttons just has to be funny. And loveable.

"Then it's Buttons for me," he says, grinning.

*Insane Fight Club 2, January 21, This Time It's Personal, BBC1, 10.40pm.