Rob Mallard is a class act. His acting tonight was so brilliant, so painfully watchable and so completely credible. His fury with the parents who let him down, brought him to such a sorry pass that it was possible to see the little boy within the frame of the young man. His anger was perhaps bewildering even for himself.
Ken tried to appear conciliatory, tried to convince his neglected son that he wouldn’t contact the police to tell them that it was Daniel who was the one who pushed him down the stairs. Daniel criticises his father for the ‘pretentious, trite comments’ he wrote in the book he gave Daniel, in which Ken had written ‘a golden opportunity’ – and perhaps Daniel was right – Ken could have thought of something more original.
Daniel rounds on Ken again, pretty vicious now. ‘Seventy years of abject failure!’
We learn more about Denise, his mother. She had a breakdown and it was apparently because of Ken. Daniel tells us that ‘Sometimes I hated her.’ According to Daniel, she couldn’t afford food. The power was cut off and eventually she left Daniel. He continues and tells his father that when she left, he wished she was dead – a car crash perhaps, because that way it would make sense. He wonders why she didn’t come back. Understandably the worst case for Daniel was that she left him and chose to stay away. That is the killer.
Denise appears, just as Ken is calling out for the police. Daniel takes a knife and shuts himself in the bathroom. He is utterly devastated and is hyperventilating.
It is quite a while since I have witnessed an actor on Coronation Street give such a consummate performance. The last time was probably Jack P, Shepherd, when Kylie died in his arms and his grief was almost tangible.
Ruth Owen, twitter: @Ruth1722
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