When actor Brian Capron decided to don his apron for the current season of Celebrity Masterchef, he got some help from the best in the business.

Before appearing on the show – which sees famous faces attempt to impress judges John Torode and Greg Wallace to raise money for charity – the Hove local took some tips from Ben McKellar of The Ginger Pig, John-Christophe Martin of L’Eglise on Church Street and staff at Graze on Western Road.

After being voted out of Strictly Come Dancing in the first week back in 2007 – “I wasn’t very well,”

he protests – he was determined not to meet a similar fate on the famously high-pressure cookery programme.

But despite their best efforts he was not prepared for the challenge that awaited him – making industrial quantities of packet custard with comedian Shappi Khorsandi as his partner.

The recently screened episode sees the pair causing untold trauma to chefs at Goldsmiths College as they botch their way through the challenge, he struggling (he claims) because he forgot his glasses, she protesting she can’t do it because she’s dyslexic. Naturally, it’s brilliant telly.

Capron insists he is a good cook however, and has become better through taking part in the show. “Masterchef is tough, much tougher than I’d imagined. When we were asked to cook goat as part of our mystery challenge my stomach hit the floor, and I can’t deny it’s hard having Greg and John assess your cooking.

“Very rarely in life do people look at something you’ve created and tell you to your face that it’s rubbish.

At least in the theatre they usually wait until they’re outside. But when Greg and John say something nice it’s just such a lift and I’ve become a completely different cook through being pushed to that level.”

But if Capron, 65, was hoping to leave his most famous role behind him, the producers of the series had other ideas.

Although it’s now ten years since he played infamous Coronation Street baddie Richard Hillman, he appears on Masterchef accompanied by sinister music that suggests he still can’t quite be trusted with sharp objects.

Although the LAMDA-trained actor already had a decent CV on joining the soap in 2001 with credits including Grange Hill, EastEnders, Taggart, The Sweeney and more, playing Hillman allowed him to, as he puts it, “touch the wall” of proper fame.

Nearly 20 million viewers watched his murder confession when he told wife Gail Platt and step-daughter Sarah-Louise how he killed his first wife and battered to death hairdresser Maxine Peacock, and so many kettles were switched on during the commercial break it caused a massive surge on the national grid.

His performance won him more than 14 television awards and Coronation Street its first Bafta, and Capron says he will forever be grateful for the platform the soap gave him – and continues to give him. While many ex-soap actors turn grumpy when asked about the role that made them a household name, Capron is refreshingly clear-eyed about what it has afforded him. At one stage he earned £8,000 in a morning through opening a string of supermarkets but, more than that, he has never been out of work since.

“I’ve been around the world on him and done amazing things I never thought I’d do. I wouldn’t have done any of it without Richard Hillman. I’m also pleased I got to touch the wall of fame…and walk away from it.”

When he took the role he had no idea where it would lead.

At one stage he was unable to leave his home in central Hove for reporters hiding in the bushes and he couldn’t go to a supermarket without attracting a crowd.

“When I did Strictly, my dance partner Karen Hardy told me to stand up straight – I realised I’d actually developed a stoop from trying to avoid meeting people’s eyes!”

Life after the soap took a little adjustment but Capron started to shake off Richard Hillman through roles at the National Theatre and later in musicals including Guys And Dolls and Stepping Out.

“I was so embarrassed by what happened with Strictly because I knew I could dance so I thought I’m going to bloody well prove it and took on the challenge of learning to tap dance. By the end of the first run of Stepping Out I was doing the same pick-ups as all the dancers. I’d had a bit of a golden touch with Coronation Street and Strictly gave me a kick up the bum, which I probably needed.”

But he returned to the character for Coronation Street musical Street Of Dreams last May – a strange period when he would travel up to Manchester to perform to crowds of 8,000 people then back to Brighton to perform his one-man show Brighton Fringe show Gogol to an audience of 60.

Now he’s appearing at Eastbourne Theatres in its new production of Willy Russell’s Educating Rita, where he plays jaded Open University lecturer Frank opposite Jennifer Daley as the earnest hairdresser-turned-student.

“He’s a fascinating character and reminds me of so many people from my past,” he says. “I had a teacher like him actually, who came into the classroom and said, ‘We’re not doing any English today we’re going to listen to Handel’ – brilliant.

I’ve drawn a lot of Frank from him.”

Capron grew up in Surrey but moved to Hove in 1976 with his first wife and newborn baby Lucy – who’s now 37 and works on This Morning.

He has three children; in addition to Lucy there’s Ellen, an actor, and Louis, who’s just taken his AS Levels at BHASVIC and is hoping to become a film director.

Capron has given up the allotment he used to tend near the greyhound stadium – “too much hard work” – but still has the beach hut on Hove seafront he bought when Coronation Street ended in 2001. “I have the train station in one direction and the beach hut in the other – my cup runneth over!”

After Masterchef and Educating Rita, you’ll spot Capron in forthcoming episodes of TV dramas Silk and New Tricks, while off-screen he’s often to be found in the moshpit at music festivals where he and his second wife Jacqueline, an actress and musician, take their six-berth motor home.

“I’ve been unbelievably lucky,” he concludes. “I’ve been doing this job for 40 years and I’ve had a lovely time.

It’s not been a metetoric career – I’m not in Hollywood – but I’ve loved it and continue to love it. I come from a council estate in Staines! I can’t believe where I’ve wound up.”

*Educating Rita is at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, from August 29 to September 7. Visit the website, www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk, for more information and to buy tickets.