Anthony "Tony" Hirst (born 21 January 1967) is a British actor and theatre director, best known for playing Mike Barnes on the soap opera Hollyoaks and in Coronation Street as Paul Kershaw, the love interest of Eileen Grimshaw. Hirst also narrated the UK version of How It's Made, shown on the Discovery and Quest channels, and various programmes for Channel 4.
Filmography
Hirst's acting roles include Mike Barnes from Hollyoaks, Martin Gooch from The Ghost Squad and Steve Kingsley from Holby City. He has narrated TV documentaries such as Blueprint for Disaster, 2005, The Garage, Smash Lab, and How It's Made since 1999. He also narrates some of the programme trailers on Fox and Channel 4. Hirst appeared as a fireman called Paul on Coronation Street during the show's 50th anniversary in December 2010. Paul returned to Coronation Street as a regular character during October 2011. It was revealed on 24 February 2013 that Hirst would be leaving Coronation Street in 2013 at the end of his contract. In 2014, Tony Hirst narrated 2 seasons of food factory and in 2015 narrated season 1 of home factory both on Discovery science.
Tony Hirst is an academic in the Department of Computing and Communications at the Open University, but better known for the OUseful Blog on practical applications of open data.
Notable achievements
In February 2009, Hirst and colleague Joss Winn, established WriteToReply, to re-publish the UK Government's Digital Britain Interim Report in a way that allowed readers to comment on each paragraph. This was among a number of experiments to promote greater online public participation in government consultations.
Hirst won the 2011 "Open Up" contest for his ideas about the use of UCAS data. The Open Up contest was run by TSO (formerly "The Stationery Office", a publishing company that supplies the UK Government) and came with a £50,000 development fund to enable the idea. Hirst was chosen by a judging panel headed up by TSO director of digital products Robin Brattel, and included artificial intelligence expert Sir Nigel Richard Shadbolt and Open University director of communications Lucian J Hudson.
As soon as Tony broke they went for the over, they jumped it, and Tony was wide open.” ... Tavernier completed 6-of-9 passes for 134 yards with two touchdowns and one interception, while junior Kaegan Hirst caught two passes for 80 yards.
Even when TonyBlair came along – a Labour leader who would break the 18-year pattern of Labour defeat – his policies were so close to Tory ones it just seemed business as usual. It wasn’t Clement Attlee in 1945, building a New Jerusalem.
Breathing life into lessons . Xunzi’s wisdom . Half-German headline ... Dr Tony Hirst Darwen, Lancashire • I, as a longtime teacher and teacher trainer, and the Confucian scholar Xunzi would agree with Michael Rosen.
Michael Rosen’s praise of Miss Pope’s biology lessons (Miss Pope, my science teacher, would have approved of music and ice lollies in class. Exams aren’t the only way to learn, 23 August) reminded me of her offbeat teaching methods ... Dr Tony Hirst ... “... .
Week 7 of the baseball and softball season featured a number of highlights and top performances ... Keegan Hirst had a key RBI single for the Panthers (3-13). TonyNavan had two hits, including a double, in Plainfield’s 7-0 loss against Montville.
However, aside from a tribute to his kindly personality from his folks (Julie Hesmondhalgh’s Joan and Tony Hirst’s David) in the second half, we learn little about him. He’s rendered, in effect, in terms of absence ... .
Take note ... Every actor shines, from Shields’ agile and energetic performance to the fleet ensemble who double up, at speed, to play characters around him, including James’s parents (played by Julie Hesmondhalgh and Tony Hirst, both tragically stoic) ... .
Puzzles ... Crossword. Polygon. Sudoku ... Phew ... Yet, smartly filleting Dunne’s book, adding scenes of his own between the parents (Julie Hesmondhalgh and Tony Hirst), Graham fills in the picture with only the odd over-obvious exchange or pop at austerity ... .
Credit. Discovery Channel. How It’s Made ...Season 3 premiered on January 22, 2015, and consists of 8 episodes ... Moore and Tony Hirst, whose expert narration skillfully leads viewers through every stage of the production process ... How It’s Made ... .
