We saw Billy and Bernie reconcile at the wake, how has Billy been coping since then?
Well, I think he's not really. I think he's been trying to distract himself. So he's sort of filling up his time trying to run different courses. Roy has very kindly offered him a free space at the cafe. He's running a grief counselling group and a drug rehabilitation or ex addict sort of group. Billy really gets upset because nobody turns up to the grief session, and he thinks nobody wants him. I don't think he's coping particularly well at all; he's deflecting and using other stuff as a distraction to try and keep his mind off of everything.
Billy has decided to go back to work but he has made this decision to no longer be an archdeacon. Why is that?
He's asked if he can go back just as a normal vicar, because the role of an Archdeacon is much more clerical. It's sort of office based and his passion and love for the Church has always been about trying to help people be part of the community. It means that he can get back out there into the community and can be a confidant or support for other people. He asks the bishop if he can quit as an Archdeacon but there are no parishes available right at the moment, so he's having to sort of just tread water until they can find him a little parish of his own.
Yet again this week we see Bernie and Billy at odds about Bernie’s plan to screen the ashes release in the pub, why is Billy upset at the thought of that?
I think secretly, Billy thinks it's not very dignified. Even though he's sort of agreed to allow her to do it. I think it's that it's not in keeping with his belief and not what he thinks should happen after death? He has more conservative views and spirituality than Bernie does and he doesn't like the idea of another sort of raucous party in the pub. I don't think I've ever known a character have so many funerals before. I mean, we've had his main one. We had the rave and now the ashes launch. But also, I think Billy's struggling with his guilt, unbeknownst to Bernie, because he's obviously made the pass at Todd, which nobody knows about. So I think it's a combination of him not dealing well with the grief, thinking that Ash's launch is a terrible idea, plus struggling with the fact that he made this drunken past at Todd the day of Paul's funeral.
This week he meets someone he believes to be an old fiend of Paul, how does that come about and what happens?
He has met this guy Wayne at one of these rehabilitation groups that he's running, and he is a trainee builder, a labourer. Wayne told him that he was an old school friend of Paul's. Billy wants to help and give him some work so he asks him to come and get rid of the grab rails ect in the flat. He tells Billy that he's hungry, and Billy hasn't got anything in so he pops down to Dev’s to get some bits and bobs to make this guy some food. And he runs into Bernie and tells her about Wayne, and Bernie knows exactly who this guy is and tells Billy to get rid as he used to get Paul into trouble all the time and isn't to be trusted. He rushes back to the flat to find that this guy has gone and stolen Billy's jewellery box, which has got Billy’s box of Paul's ashes in it and Summer’s laptop with all her college work on it. He's obviously annoyed at himself, devastated by the thought that the only tiny little bit of Paul that he had left is now gone.
He hits rock bottom again after that, can you explain how he is feeling when he goes to the Rovers for the ashes release screening?
He has already started drinking prior to getting there. Billy doesn't seem to cope well with these situations you know, obviously he had a heroin addiction, he's obviously got an addictive personality. He seems to turn to alcohol for comfort but can’t really handle it, for comfort. He's knocked back a few whiskers before he gets there, and then starts drinking really heavily during the event. Todd is telling him how many people are there for him and Billy can’t deal with the guilt of what he did. Billy says, well, they wouldn't be if they knew what kind of a person I actually was, like. So when Bernie starts to starts the video, presses play, and they start watching he just can’t do it.
Why does he reveal to everyone about his drunken pass at Todd?
It is guilt and self sabotage. He's so drunk, he's not thinking clearly, and he's full of rage for himself. He feels very hypocritical, because obviously, as a vicar, he has helped people through grief on so many occasions, and now he's actually fallen apart. He can't deal with his own grief that he's soiled his entire relationship with Paul, because he's made this drunken pass at Todd. He just loses the plot, and he nicks at the remote off the bar and turns the TV off, and then basically spills it all to the whole pub!
He ends up in a drunken stupor behind the factory. He has gone somewhere no one will see him. Has he given up at this point?
He's just hammered. He doesn't want to go back to the flat, because everything in the flat reminds him of Paul and everything that they had together. Paul's stuff is there, but Paul isn't so what's the point in being in the flat. It must be weird for him, because he's gone from being a carer of somebody 24/7 having his entire life devoted to this human being that he adored, to suddenly almost being surplus to his own existence because he doesn't have a job. Now he's got 24 hours every day to fill, and he doesn't know how to fill them. He's just filled with regret and despair and grief. And so he goes and buys a bottle of whiskey and sort of just staggers across the road. I'm not entirely sure why. He chooses to just end up on a wooden crate behind the factory. He isn’t suicidal he is just beyond caring anymore.
Bernie finds him, if he recovers can he come back from the depths of grief and despair and start to live his life again?
Ultimately, he's quite an intelligent person, you know, emotionally and intellectually. And I think it's just time that he needs. Everybody deals with grief in different ways but something happens to him when he is drifting in and out of consciousness drunk and freezing cold and that will massively help him going forward.
What has the response been like to the end of this storyline?
I think for the most part, people have felt very moved by it. I know 100% that the MND community has been. I'm actually at another MND fundraiser coming up, with Pete and Harriet coming as well. So all of that is still ongoing. Anybody that's experienced MND for themselves, you know, either with themselves or a loved one, I think they've been really thrilled with we were so truthful with it right up until the end.
Billy has gone through such a lot, how did you feel when it ended and what did you do to decompress?
I went on holiday and slept pretty much for two weeks in between swimming and reading books.
What would you like the storyline’s legacy to be?
I would like the legacy to be that we've really helped to raise the profile of MND, the visibility of it and what it does to those living with it, and to their loved ones, their carers, their families. It's been the most personal story I've ever had to act and therefore felt so proud of it, of what we've managed to achieve. And also I've got Corrie to thank for, for having a beautiful friendship in Pete which is continuing, and I see him a lot. It's lovely when you get paired up with somebody who, not only you work really well with, but you genuinely have a connection in real life as well.
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