Attitude’s TV Personality of the Year: Antony Cotton

In 12 years on the streets of Weatherfield as Coronation Street’s Sean Tully, Antony Cotton has earned himself a National Television and Stonewall Award, neatly bookending his great gift to British culture.

He’s brought a real, if fictional, gay man onto British television, an emblem of his times, a character that reminded the Northern suburbs that men like Martin Platt and Kevin Webster, Christians like Emily Bishop and obviously brassy barmaids of the Liz McDonald ilk would not blanche at sharing a drink and enjoying the casual conversation of a gay man like Sean Tully in the 21st century Rovers Return.

In 2015 it’s impossible to imagine the show without him in it.

Antony himself is an emblem of self-made Northern achievement. He’s lived life as the most famous alpha gay Mancunian fearlessly. “There is just something inherently Manc about me,” he notes. “I live for that city. And you know why that is? Because it’s been really good to me.” The arrangement is reciprocal. Antony is a patron of Pride, an ambassador for Manchester United F.C., a Coronation Street star and, to complete his score-card for full house in Manchester Bingo, was once the fellow who sorted out the guest list for The Haçienda (“heady, mental times”).

For all their differences, there is one distinctly appealing trait that Antony Cotton shares deeply in common with Sean Tully. “That character has never, ever apologised for who he is,” he says. “And he never, ever will.” At the forefront of British LGBT visibility for 15 years now, we’re honoured to name Antony Cotton Attitude’s TV Personality of the Year.

Read more about Antony – and the rest of winners from the 2015 Attitude Awards, presented in association with Virgin Holidays – in our special Attitude Awards issue, available to download from 11pm tonight at attitudedigital.co.uk and in shops tomorrow (Thursday October 15).