Kirk Sutherland gets his own Coronation Street online series

Coronation Street favourite Kirk Sutherland is getting an early Christmas present - his own spin-off series.

The dim-witted character, played by Andrew Whyment, will star in a five-part online series called What Would Kirk Do? which will involve fans in his wedding decisions.

This is the first time that Coronation Street will have an interactive element to their webisodes, allowing viewers to help out Kirk as he faces various dilemmas over his upcoming wedding to Beth Tinker (Lisa George).

Votes cast on his decisions will affect the outcome of the story with three different endings to pick from for each of the episodes.

Kirk will be joined by some well-known faces from the cobbles, including his sister Maria Connor (Samia Ghadie), barmaid Eva Price (Catherine Tyldesley), Beth's son Craig Tinker (Colson Smith), her niece Sinead Tinker (Katie McGlynn) and Sinead's boyfriend Chesney Brown (Sam Aston), and of course Beth.

The first webisode is available on Coronation Street's official website today, with further instalments coming on December 22 and 29, and January 5 and 9.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.