Corrie to have a Gay Wedding

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There is also Jamie, the dad young Dylan has known all his life, why is he not looking after him

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Coronation Street's Sean Tully and Marcus Dent look set to become soap's first gay parents.

The loved-up pair - played by Antony Cotton and Charlie Condou - will follow in the footsteps of Sir Elton John and David Furnish, who recently became dads to baby Zachary, and raise Sean's long-lost son together.

After Sean travels to the bright lights of London to visit best pal Violet Wilson (Jenny Platt) and their son Dylan - who he fathered by sperm donation when Violet and her partner Jamie were having fertility issues - his dreams will come true when he unexpectedly bumps into hunky ex-boyfriend Marcus.

However, in an unexpected twist, when the couple agree to give things another go, Violet drops the bombshell that she needs them to look after Dylan - played by four-year-old twins Liam and Connor McCheyne - for a while.

According to an insider at the ITV1 soap, 'Corrie' bosses are making a concerted effort to handle the new plot "very sensitively" in a bid to not upset its older viewers.

A source told The Sun newspaper: "There's a chance older viewers will be shocked by the storyline, so we will handle things very sensitively."

Becoming parents to adorable Dylan looks set to do wonders for the couple's relationship, as it was recently revealed Sean and Marcus are going to tie the knot.

An insider explained: "When Marcus turns up in Weatherfield in the spring he is desperate to rekindle his romance. But having hurt him once, Sean is apprehensive until Marcus offers him commitment, with the future storyline leading to Corrie's first same sex marriage."

(C) BANG Media International


So there will be a time when he is meant to return the boy

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Antony Cotton is proud of Coronation Street's new gay dad storyline.

In this weekend's Easter special Antony's character Sean Tully heads to London to visit his three-year-old son Dylan, and bumps into his ex Marcus Dent (Charlie Condou) which leads to them raising his child together as parents.

Antony told New! magazine of the storyline: "It's two men pushing a buggy down a street - it's modern life. And if nothing else it will give people something to talk about.

"If there's one conversation about a young, gay man parenting in a positive way that's got to be a good thing."

And the 35-year-old gay actor - who lives in Lancashire with his partner of six years, props buyer Peter Eccleston, 32 - doesn't care about viewers who think children should be raised by a mother and father.

He said: "It's a terribly old-fashioned view. Gay people are the same as anybody else.

"As long as two people are happy and offer a child unconditional love, I don't see what the problem is."

While Antony has no plans to become a parent himself he said he loves working with the children who play his son in Corrie.

He said: "The identical twins who play my three-year-old son are so cute. I kept trying to get them to pick up some of my mannerisms. In one scene I did a flamboyant shrug, and the little boy did the same when it was his shot."


PA

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If its good enough for Elton

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Antony Cotton, who plays Sean Tully, has told We Love Telly magazine in The Mirror that there'll be no gay wedding for Sean a nd Marcus, as has been rumoured recently.

Antony was interviewed about Sean's upcoming storyline where he's reunited with son Dylan and ex-boyfriend Marcus.

How does Sean feel when he is reunited with Dylan? He's thrilled to see him. And it's typical Sean he has travelled all the way there on the coach with the biggest teddy bear you have ever seen.

Would Sean like the chance to be a full-time dad to Dylan?Sean would love that. This episode does actually sew the seeds for a few weeks ahead when Sean gets the chance to be dad to Dylan in Weatherfield for a while, which is going to be great.

We've heard rumours of a gay marriage with Marcus... would you like to see that for Sean?That was hilarious and totally made up by the papers - they even said we were getting married on the same day as Prince William and Kate Middleton. Great idea but not true at all. Who knows what the future holds for Sean, but a wedding is not on the cards at the moment..

[owenlee4me]

well this is a surprise for "corra", I'M ACTUALLY SURPRISED THEY HAVE NOT GONE AHEAD WITH THIS STORYLINE BUT BUT marcus being a midwife MAYBE having their own baby??/
what is it with "corra" at the minute, it seems obsessed by trying to explore every avenue on the "politically correct" stream

we have sean (of course) to be with marcus
sophie and sian
todd returning with "jools"

and now they "corra" is moving onto gender storylines

hayley the transexual
mark the transvestite

what next is coming!!!

Should be interesting to see what they can cram into one litle terrace street!!

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Charlie Condue has revealed that he is delighted to have returned to Coronation Street, especially as part of a plot that mirrors his real life.

Condou returned to the soap as Marcus Dent. The character has spent three years away to help look after his son Dylan, whom he fathered with Violet Wilson (Jenny Platt). Dent
has also rekindled his relationship with barman Sean
Tully (Antony Cotton) after Wilson was injured in a car crash.

The actor himself is bringing up daughter Georgia Mae with his boyfriend of four years Cameron Laux, along with the child's mother and long-time friend Catherine Kanter.

On returning to the soap, Condou told The Sunday Mirror: "I think it's a great *storyline. Obviously I would because of my personal situation, but I also think it's really relevant.

"I feel like I'm on-trend all of a sudden! Elton and David have done it, and Rufus Wainwright and Ricky Martin. It's very *fashionable to be a gay dad.

"It's a great thing to have on TV, *especially with a soap like Coronation Street which *reaches so many people."

He added that storylines such as Dent and Tully's will help make similar situations easier to understand for members of the pubic.

"It's a unique situation Sean and *Marcus are in, and I'm in with *Cameron. Because of that some viewers might be shocked.

"But I think controversial storylines like this are important because, without realising it, people become used to it and it becomes normal, for want of a better word."

Speaking about the decision to father a child, he said: "I was in a lucky place in that my relationship was very stable, I had a nice house and *financially we were okay. It felt like a good time to do it.

"It took a bit of time for *Cameron to get his head around it but he knew how much I wanted to do it and he's a great dad."

Condou recently said that his storyline gave out a positive image for gay parenting.

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Coronation Street actor Charlie Condou has hit back at claims that there are too many gay characters on the ITV1 soap.

In a piece for the Daily Mail, critic Brian Sewell condemned the "showered, prinked and perfumed" male characters, while also claiming that other soaps including EastEnders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks have homosexual characters "who dominate the storylines".

"Is it true that the lives of heterosexual Mancunians are haplessly intertwined with transvestites, transsexuals, teenage lesbians and a horde of homosexuals across the age range? Is Manchester now the Sodom of the North?" he wrote.

"There's too much, not only of gay men - who are estimated to make up just 6% of the population, but who dominate the storylines in the soap - but also of lesbians, bisexuals, the transgender community, cross-dressers and everyone else with some sexual quirk or fetish."

Sewell added: "When confronted with this, the sane man may feel his nose is being rubbed in it."

> Corrie star: 'Gay couples can be parents'
> 'Coronation Street' gay plots divide opinion

Condou - who recently returned to the Manchester serial as Marcus Dent - hit back at Sewell's "barely-veiled homophobia".

"I wouldn't have thought four characters out of a cast of about 65 regulars was excessive," Condou wrote in The Guardian. "Sewell seems to suggest there's something morally reprehensible in being gay, and that there's some kind of promotion of a gay agenda at work (led by a sinister-sounding 'mafia'). But in fact you barely see a kiss from the gay characters, just like our heterosexual counterparts. It's not a 'sexy' show."

He continued: "As for the idea that 'all the characters are showered, prinked and perfumed - particularly the men' - has Sewell ever seen Tyrone?"

Describing Coronation Street as "quite a camp show", Condou pointed out that transsexual Hayley Cropper regularly tops character popularity polls among viewers: "That doesn't sound like a population that would agree with Brian Sewell."

He continued: "The way to encourage equality is through exposure – but not by ramming sexuality down people's throats. I think Coronation Street has succeeded in encouraging the acceptance of gay people since its inception, and in a gentle, straightforward way, and I'm very proud to be part of that heritage.

"Sewell's article worries me because it seems to be part of a change in mood that reminds me of the Section 28 years, when everyone was shouting out that the gays were taking over.

"This week's news that Opera North had pulled the plug on Lee Hall's opera Beached over explicit references by a gay character to his sexuality has added to this," he concluded. "It feels like we're moving backwards, and I find that shocking."

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Coronation Street star Charlie Condou has revealed that he is sticking with the soap after landing a new contract.

The actor, who plays Sean Tully's boyfriend Marcus Dent, made his Weatherfield comeback earlier this year after previously departing the cobbles in 2008.

Marcus's storyline has seen him help Sean to raise his son Dylan, who is staying with the couple while mum Violet recovers from an accident.

Although Dylan is expected to return home to Violet later this year, it has now emerged that Marcus will be staying put on the street.

Condou told So So Gay of his Coronation Street return: "The producers had been looking to bring me back for a while, as far as I know. I'd had a few conversations with them, and they kept saying they'd love to bring me back if I was interested. I'd always say yes, but only if the storyline was right. This storyline came about, and it just made a lot of sense to me - obviously, it's something very close to my heart.

"Originally I said I'd just come back for the parenting story, because the child playing Dylan could only be with us for a finite period. But I enjoyed it so much that at the end of my contract, when I was asked if I'd stay on, I said, 'yep'. So I'm staying!"

Antony Cotton, who plays the role of Sean, also recently signed a new contract with the Weatherfield soap. Additionally, Samia Smith has confirmed that she is staying on as Maria Connor for at least another year.

In real life, Condou is expecting his second child with best friend Catherine. They already have a 2-year-old daughter named Georgia, who splits her time between living with Catherine and living with Condou and his partner Cameron.

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Charlie Condou, who plays the wonderful Marcus on Coronation Street, is interviewed this week in the fab Inside Soap magazine. He says he'd love to have Marcus and Sean get married with a big, camp do (so would I).

He says: "I think it would be great if they got married. There have been lots of rumours but I'm afraid they're just that at the moment - rumours. If Sean and Marcus were to get married, it would have to be a big, camp affair - so watch this space!"