Updated: 'Coronation Street' Andrew Lancel denies "too many gay" characters comment

Coronation Street actor Andrew Lancel has denied that he agreed that there are too many gay characters in the soap.

Daily Mail critic Brian Sewell slammed the ITV serial for having too many male cast members earlier this week, saying that they are "showered, prinked and perfumed".

Charlie Condou, who plays Marcus Dent, later hit back at the "barely-veiled homophobia".

"I wouldn't have thought four characters out of a cast of about 65 regulars was excessive," the actor said. "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')."

The Daily Star claimed that Condou's co-star Lancel - who portrays Underworld boss Frank Foster - branded the number of gay characters in the show "disproportional", during a speech at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire.

"I believe there are too many gay people on Coronation Street," the 40-year-old actor is quoted as saying by the tabloid. "If you walked down any street in Manchester you wouldn't see so many. It is disproportional."

However, denying the attributed quotes, Lancel told Twitter followers: "Mmmm Just seen Daily Star. Well that seems considerably different to everything I've been saying recently and believe doesn't it. saddened. (sic)"

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