A BLACKPOOL man has won the chance to play Plato at one of the town's top tourist attractions.

Suitably clad in togas, six would-be Greek philosophers pitted their wits against one another in their bid for stardom at the SeaLife Centre.

But it was 61-year-old Basil Soper who emerged triumphant after a panel of five judges, which included Leisure Parcs archives specialist Brian Crompton and entertainments supervisor at the centre, Liz Ellis, voted him unanimously to be their face of the future.

The search for someone with sage-like qualities to portray the ancient philosopher was launched to captivate visitors at a new £500,000 Lost City of Atlantis feature at the centre.

Now theatre company manager Basil, from North Shore, will be whisked down to London to be filmed in a professional studio telling the story of the rise and fall of the fabled sunken empire, as well as collecting £100.

Basil's features will then be projected on to a golden statue of Plato, bringing the figure to life to recount the story a dozen or more times a day to visitors.

Basil said: "I'm absolutely delighted to win. I'm very pleased to be contributing to the SeaLife's work and to tell this very important story.

"I entered the search for Plato as a bit of fun really, nothing too serious. But after today's auditions I found I had won and it now becomes a very serious matter indeed."

Manager Della Belk said: "We didn't want to employ a professional actor because we wanted to give someone local their chance to have a claim to fame.

"All the Platos were fantastic today and I'm sure we have found the right person for the job.

"We even had one woman audition today. Although she wasn't successful there's always the possibility that the Atlantis feature could be expanded to include Plato's wife Cleito as well."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.