ANTONY COTTON
From Queer As Folk to guest spots in Absolutely Fabulous, Antony Cotton had already garnered an impressive acting CV. But his most famous role is as Sean Tully in Coronation Street, undoubtedly one of the UK’s most high profile LGBT characters.
WORDS: PAUL FLYNN
Attitude Award Winner
TV PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR AWARD
PHOTOGRAPHY: JOSEPH SINCLAIR
GROOMING: MELISSA BOURNE
In a taxi conversation from the Thames Barrier to Waterloo station, Antony Cotton takes a brief pause to consider how he differs from the character he plays in Coronation Street, Sean Tully. Since 2003, Sean and, by extension, Antony have become gently omnipresent in the national living room. “I’m not necessarily intense storyline-wise,” he says, “but I am intense schedule-wise. I live at number 11, I’m in the factory and I’m in the pub, so I’m across the exterior and the interiors. Every episode has six scenes in the Rovers. So, I’m there a lot.” If anybody would care to tot up the sums, Sean/Antony is perhaps the most visible gay man, per view per capita in Britain of the last decade.
Sean’s major usefulness on Corrie is as a decorative, quick-witted chorus figure, an emotional pointer for viewers. “Unusually for a Coronation Street character,” says Antony, “Sean doesn’t have any enemies.” When his fellow resident at the old house of Elsie Tanner (“that still gives me a shiver”), Jason Grimshaw was recently hospitalised at the hands of tin-pot gangster, Callum Logan, Sean was afforded a particularly touching, poignant purpose. Jason’s parents Eileen and Tony did the heavy-lifting for the coma scenes. But it was only when Sean touched Jason on the cheek and said “What have they done to your beautiful face, Jay-boy?” that the audience were prompted to really care.