Soap star says cheese

Former Coronation Street actor Sean Wilson, who played Martin Platt in the long-running soap, was in Shropshire today.

Wilson, who joined the cast of the ITV soap in 1985, was in Ludlow for a cheese-tasting event at the town's Deli on the Square.

The actor, who was in the soap for 20 years before leaving in 2005, launched his cheese with the Saddleworth Cheese Company based in Lancashire in July and has already received recognition for his efforts, including a Gold British Cheese Award for his Muldoons Picnic, a crumbly Lancashire cheese.

His Smelly Apeth cheese, a Lancashire blue, also won best new cheese at the Dublin Cheese Awards.

Mr Wilson today said: "We started making cheese commercially four months ago. I've set the business up so that if the phone were to ring and the right acting job were to come out, I could walk away for a short time and then come back."

Maggie Wright, of Deli on the Square, said: "He has been making cheese for two years and supplies through our main wholesalers. They alerted me to it and I thought it sounded interesting and that I would invite him down. Then we tasted it and the blue in particular is fantastic."

Anyone who missed the event today can taste the actor's cheese another time as the shop is planning to keep it in stock.