Tonight: Corrie's Andy Whyment and his dad join Big Star's Bigger Star

Andy Whyment, who plays Kirk Sutherland in Coronation Street, will be starring in ITV's Big Star's Bigger Star tonight. Andy is on the show with his dad, and it's on ITV at 5.30pm.

Stephen Mulhern hosts a brand new spin-off series ‘Big Star’s Bigger Star’, which lifts the lid on celebrities’ lives – but through the eyes of their parents.

With a whole lifetime of stories, anecdotes and revelations to choose from, this new four-part series will see Britain’s best-loved personalities team up with their parents to win as much money as possible for charity, while hoping they can stop their parents from revealing too much. 

In this episode host of ‘The Voice’ Emma Willis, Coronation Street’s Andy Whyment and Loose Woman Andrea McLean compete for the £15,000 jackpot.

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Celebrating 17 years of Kirk on Coronation Street

With thanks to our pals at Corriepedia for alerting us to the fact that today, October 22nd is the 17th anniversary of the first appearance of Kirk in Coronation Street.

Kirk first appeared on Coronation Street on October 22, 2000 at Tyrone and Maria's engagement party. He turned up as Maria's brother as a guest at the party and here's the picture from his very first scene.

However, in that first appearance, Corriepedia tells us that the new character of Kirk was credited not as Kirk Sutherland, but as Kirk Stringer. Does anyone know why and why they changed his surname?

Andrew Whyment has played Kirk from the very start and remains an integral part of Coronation Street. But did you know that Andrew previously appeared in Corrie back in 1999? He played the part of Wayne, who bought fireworks in The Kabin from Sharon Gaskell.

Now then, Kirk himself doesn't get any big or explosive storylines, but he's been at the heart of some of Corrie's best loved drama over the years and continues to be so too.

Let's have a look at some of the Kirk classic stories!

He dated Fiz and she thought he was having a fling with Thelma Clegg, who hired him to shampoo her poodle. That's not a euphemism, by the way.

In 2005 he completed The Twelve Labours of Kirkules!  When Les Battersby chose Kirk to be his best man at his wedding to Cilla, Cilla wasn't pleased with the choice. And so she set Kirk a task to prove his worth as their best man - and the Twelve Labours of Kirkules commenced!  Among the tasks that Kirk had to carry out were Schmeichel's squeaky plastic toy and unburdening Blanche of her girdle.

In May 2007, Kirk lost his job at Sutherland's Kennels when he accidentally allowed a pedigree dog to be castrated.  He's always been a bit of a hapless chap.

But then he helped Jamie Baldwin rescue Claire Peacock from her burning house. As a reward, Claire's husband, Ashley gave Kirk a job at the butchers shop.

After Cilla Battersby-Brown left the Street for Las Vegas in 2007, Kirk was left to look after Chesney and the two of them have been close ever since.

In April 2008, Kirk left to visit his parents in Cyprus for a several weeks. On his return, he broke the news that he had a new girlfriend called Julie, who he fell in love with in Cyprus.

In 2012, Kirk offered to drive Beth Tinker to a date with a man named Dave. However, the date went wrong, and Kirk ended up getting punched when he called Dave an idiot. Beth and Kirk eventually became close, and were married in January 2015. 

However, then Kirk found out that Beth was already wed to Craig's dad Darryl and she was a bigamist.  Did they remarry, can anyone recall?

These days, Kirk's standing for election as Mayor of Weatherfield and he's been appointed the mascot Busy Bee for Coronation Street's own football team - Weatherfield County.

And such is the character's importance to ITV Coronation Street that they even gave Kirk an online spin off called What Would Kirk Do?

You can even download and print off your own Kirk doll.  Yes, your very own KIRK DOLL.

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Why Coronation Street's Kirk is real-life romantic at heart

Andy Whyment, who plays Kirk Sutherland in Coronation Street, is on the front cover of this week's OK! magazine  talking about renewing his wedding vows.

Andy is pictured above with his wife and two children and here's the cover of OK! where he's featured too.

Andy married his wife Nichola in 2007 and they now have two children, eight year old Tom and six year old Hollie.
Speaking exclusively to OK! Magazine, Andy revealed the couple were set to cruise around the Caribbean to celebrate their 10 year anniversary.

He also discussed the possibility of renewing their wedding vows.

"If we got married again we’d probably have a different group of people there," he said. "When we got married, we were going out every weekend and now we just stay at home. So we have a very different group of friends. I would like to wait, but Nic would renew our vows tomorrow as she feels like she was a very young bride, so she would want to do it again."


The actor admits that he’s not the most romantic person in the world, but revealed how he knew his wife was The One.

"I fancied Nic for some time but nothing happened," he said. "Then we copped off one night and it wasn’t too long before I realised she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I said in my wedding speech you just know when you meet the one, and that’s true. I’ve never felt the love I’ve felt for Nic."

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Confused about Kirk? In the dark over Dirk?

Online sources yesterday went a bit wild and very wrong, when they said that Coronation Street fans were confused that a new Kirk had joined Coronation Street.  He hadn't. In the scene at the bar of the Rovers, Fiz called the man Dirk, not Kirk.

And, as Duncan Lindsay points out in his Metro soaps column, it wasn't a mistake on Corrie's part, as reported by some tabloids and repeated all over the twittersphere by those who should know better.

Dirk is Coronation Street extra and all-round veyr nice chap Adam Blease. He's Dirk, not Kirk.

As opposed to Andy Whyment, who's Kirk, not Dirk.

Get it? Got it? Good.

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Meet Andy Whyment on Saturday 3rd December

Andy Whyment, who plays Kirk Sutherland in Coronation Street, will be making an appearance at a school's Christmas Fayre.

You can meet Andy at the Daisy Hill pre-school Christmas Fayre on Saturday 3rd December.  It'll take place at the United Reform Church on Leigh Rd, Westhoughton, Bolton.

It's that time of year when Coronation Street cast members do their bit for the community and turn on chrimbo lights, open fayres, all that kind of thing. So if you hear of any of the cast doing something locally to you, do please let us know and we'll blog details here!

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Meet Corrie's Kirk and Ashley this weekend - at a car boot sale!

Andy Whyment, who plays Kirk Sutherland in Coronation Street will be appearing at a car boot sale this weekend. 

Along with Steven Arnold, who played Ashley Peacock, Andy will be at the Furnace End car boot sale on Sunday 31 July.

They'll be promoting D & R Meats, something they've done together before this year.  For full details and location, you can have a look at the Furnace End Car Boot website.

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Corrie fan interview with Andrew Whyment's mam and dad

Andy Whyment with his parents Jackie and Fred Whyment

Canadian Coronation Street fan Christine Warren who runs the Coronation Street Fun Pages, has secured an interview with Fred and Jackie Whyment, the parents of Andy Whyment, who plays Kirk Sutherland on Coronation Street.

Christine is a good friend of Fred and Jackie Whyment, and has been for some years. She has kindly given us permission here on the Coronation Street Blog to feature and link to the interview in which the Whyments talk about what it's like having a famous son on the famous show.

You can read the Whyment's interview here.

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Meet Corrie's Kirk and Ashley in Chester this weekend

The steaks (see what they did there?) are high for a good turnout when two Coronation Street actors officially open a new butchers in Chester.

The Chester Chronicle reports that this Saturday, (April 11), the public are invited to a special meat (woah-ho!) and greet with Steven Arnold who played butcher Ashley Peacock in Corrie for 15 years, and Andrew Whyment, who plays Kirk Sutherland, as the pair open the new Wayne Walker Quality Meats branch at the Forum Shopping Centre in Chester.

And whether you have a T-bone (another one!) to pick with the actors, or just want to rib (groan!) them about something - you won't have to mince (stop!) your words because the pair will be mingling with the public from 11am-2pm, signing autographs and posing for selfies.

Glenda Young 
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Video: Behind the scenes gossip from Kirk and Beth's wedding

Lisa George and Andy Whyment, who play Beth and Kirk, were interviewed from the cobbles on this morinng's Lorraine show on ITV. They talked about the wedding, to be shown on Friday 9 January.

The clip shown on Lorraine reveals that Kirk doesn't turn up for the wedding - and everone's in a panic!  Best man Chesney turns up Kirk-less and says the groom has gone AWOL.

Talking about Kirkeh's cold feet, Andy Whyment says that Kirk has some wobbles after he's heard Beth's family slagging him off. But he says: "Hopefully Chesney will sort him out."  Talking about whether Kirk will win round Beth's family, Lisa says that Kirk's the sort of person who wins everyone round in the end.

Lisa talks about the 80s style wedding and the Madonna wedding dress. "I loved the dress, it was amazing. Everyone worked so hard on it. I felt like a fairy!".

Lorraine called Beth and Kirk the 'new Jack and Vera' to which Andy said it was a huge compliment and he was very pleased Beth and Kirk's on-screen relationship was working so well.

You can watch the video here.

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Corrie Stars step up to the Ice Bucket Challenge

If you've been around the internet over the past couple of days, you can't have missed the Ice Bucket Challenge, raising money for ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gherig's Disease). You get a bucket of ice water poured over you for a donation and you challenge others to do the same.

Stars of Coronation Street got wet for this good cause and posted their challenges on YouTube. Simon Gregson and Kym Marsh switched it up a bit and went dressed as each other! There's a list of Twitter feeds on the ITV site with links there to the various YouTube and Instagram videos. Actors that have taken part to date are Simon Gregson, Antony Cotton, Kym Marsh, Sam Aston, Andy Whyment, Alan Halsall, Brooke Vincent and Jack P. Shephard. Others have been challenged, so the list on that page may grow.

Check it out.

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Join Tyrone and Kirk's charity golf day - August 31

Coronation Street lads Alan Halsall (Tyrone Dobbs) and Andy Whyment (Kirk Sutherland) have joined forces for charity with Tyrone and Kirk's golf day to take place on August 31 this year.

The charity they're supporting is called Joining Jack and Alan and Andy are hoping to raise thousands for the appeal through the star-studded event on August 31. Alan is married to fellow actor Lucy Jo Hudson, one of the nine ambassadors of Joining Jack.

Joining Jack was set up by Andy Johnson and wife Alex after they discovered their son Jack has Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The four-year-old appears perfectly healthy, and has no idea that he is suffering from a terminal illness which – over the coming years – will eat away at his body.

Lucy Jo Hudson said: “I don’t play golf myself, but I will be there on the day to serve tea and coffee and help out where I can. In the past we’ve had some ex-footballers coming along, the Coronation Street lot – Kym Marsh was there last year – and it’s really relaxed, and really good fun. Then afterwards we have a meal and a few drinks, so it should be a really good day. And it’s all for a great cause, all for Joining Jack, which is what it’s about.”

More details of the golf day – at the Worlsey Marriot – can be found on the website tyroneandkirksgolfday.co.uk and follow them on twitter @Tyrone_KirkGolf  and follow the charity on twitter @alljoinjack

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Andy Whyment says he'll never quit Corrie

Andy Whyment, who plays Coronation Street's Kirk Sutherland, says he's got no plans to leave Corrie.  In an interview with the Manchester Evening News, Andy talks about recently taking part in ITV’s Dancing On Ice and says there’s no fear of him ever giving up the day job as Kirkeh.

He says: “I’ve always said I’ll stay at Corrie as long as they’ll have me, I’ve been there 12 years now and I can honestly say I enjoy it as much today as I did the very first day when I started. I don’t know what’s going to be next for Kirk, but it’d be nice to have a bit of a storyline to be honest when I go back. I just enjoy working there, and whatever they give me I’ll be happy with.”

Andy adds that his Corrie bosses gave him their blessing for him to take part in Dancing On Ice – and gave him an extra five weeks off to take part in the tour, which calls at the Manchester Arena on April 18 and 19.

So - what storylines would you like to see for Kirk in the coming months?

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Andy Whyment voted off Dancing on Ice

Coronation Street actor Andy Whyment, who plays Kirk Sutherland, has finally been voted off ITV1's Dancing On Ice.

When Andy realised he was up against professional skier Chemmy Alcott in the skate-off, he said: “I’m pretty sure this is my last performance,” and sadly for Andy, it was. Mind you, he's lasted a fair few weeks and good on him for taking on this challenge, he really is a lovely bloke.

Andy thanked Chris and Jayne as well as the producers of Coronation Street for allowing him to be a part of Dancing On Ice 2012. He also thanked his wife for her loyal support throughout the series.

Let's hope now he's back on Corrie full-time, the powers that be will give him a decent storyline, he's not had one in ages!

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Confirmed: Andy Whyment joins Dancing on Ice

Andy Whyment, who plays Coronation Street's Kirk Sutherland, has been confirmed as one of the contestants on the new series of Dancing on Ice.

The full line up includes Heidi Range and Chesney Hawkes, Laila Morse from EastEnders, Jorgie Porter from Hollyoaks and Matthew Wolfendon from Emmerdale, Jennifer Ellison, Hollywood actor Corey Feldman and diet and fitness guru Rosemary Conley. 

Dancing on Ice begins on Sunday 8 January on ITV1 at 6.30pm.

I wonder how long Andy will be out of Coronation Street for, how his absence will be explained and more importantly, why he's doing this when his character has been floundering on the cobbles for months now without a decent storyline?

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Corrie's Kirk and Tyrone switch on Penrith Christmas lights on Sunday

Andy Whyment (Kirk) and Alan Halsall (Tyrone) will be in Penrith on Sunday 27 November to switch on their Christmas lights. 

The Coronation Street actors willl flick the switch on Devonshire Street to light up the town at 5pm. The switch-on will follow an afternoon of entertainment including a fun fair in Great Dockray and junior rides in Market Square.