With the departure of his Mam Gail looming, as actress Helen Worth says farewell to the show; his wife Shona's secret infidelity arousing his suspicions; the presence of her son Clayton in their lives; and Max's involvement with Lauren and Frankie – not to mention the big bag of stolen cash David has hidden – he's got far too much going on for any of that.
I travelled to Coronation Street Studios in Manchester for an interview with Jack P. Shepherd, who plays David, to get his take on all the happenings. Those not wishing to read any spoilers, or encounter some moderate effing and mild jeffing, should look away now.
For starters, we hear that David is "a bit apprehensive about (Gail's fiancé) Jesse, but he's kind of glad in a way that he's going to launder the money, because he thinks, right, okay, fine, that's going to be okay."
But this isn't the only thing distressing him, as his family continue to be a source of concern.
"He's worried about his Gran," Jack tells us, "because she's dropping loads of questions, she's upset, she's making up stories that she's ill so that Gail doesn't leave, and he's trying to comfort her basically, and say, look it's gonna be alright."
But, given everything we're seeing and hearing, what are the chances of that given his life is essentially in chaos?
"He always sort of cracks under pressure, doesn't he." Jack notes. "It looks like he's got it all togther and then he kind of does summat extreme, like he'll run someone over, or try and poision someone or something."
Asked if he likes playing such a character, and the fact that David is still unhinged given all that's happened to him, Jack says, "Yeah, it always seems as though he's completely normal and he's just having a laugh. And then as soon as something sort of threatens his family, he goes hell-bent, sort of psycho. I don't mind doing that, because it means you can obviously dip in and out of the two, and neither two are out of character."
Asked how he thinks David will react to Shona's recent infidelity with Detective Kit Green, Jack says, "I think he'll react in a way where he'll have to try and get his own back somehow, and he'll have to try and do it in a clever way. Barring the obvious, with him being six foot taller than David, he won't be able to take him on physically. It'll have to be something sort of mentally, I'd have thought. He'll do something to f**k his life up somehow. That's what he'll do."
"I think he does, and I think that's what makes it so painful for him when he does find out," Jack observes. "And it also makes it so hard for him to break the marriage up, because he does still love her. I think he's kind of p***ed off with himself that he does; that he fell in love with her in the first place, 'cos he shouldn't have done, 'cos she's the mother of the lad who killed his wife, so it should never have happened. But, he fell in love with her before he knew that. And then he knew that, and he went, aww s**t! I think that's still a sleeping giant that just will not go away."
Jack absolutely thinks David has the right to prevent Shona seeing her imprisoned son Clayton, and he and Julia Goulding, who plays his onscreen wife, even argue in the green room about each of their characters being in the right.
"You're not seeing him!" asserts Jack, who plays this out to great amusement. "I don't get it. He held a knife to your throat, and he was gonna kill you, and I had to get the SWAT team of Weatherfield, who were there. We all saw it. It was snowing, he were in a warehouse in Rusholme, and he had her at knife point, and they were going 'Get on the f***ing floor!' They were doing all this, and now she wants to go (see him)? No."
"He murdered my wife, Saint Kylie, and he tried to kill you so, no. We're not having him, and we're not speaking about him. We're never mentioning his name, and we're pretending he doesn't exist. That's the kind of avenue I wanna go down. And as soon as he's sending these little friend requests, we're not off to go see him, we're not doing that. And I don't even wanna bring it up with Shona for the chance she might say 'I wanna.' We're not having that. So, no. They're off in the bin. And then she bloody finds out!"
Asked what it's like to be a Platt and work with his fellow Platt family cast members, Jack says, "There's a lot of us. And you can look at the kids now, and there's three, so, there's mine, Nick's and Sarah's replacements. I've got Lily – so, Sarah. Nick's got himself, weirdly, in Sam, and Sarah's got me – Harry."
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"It is funny; it is good. I think we all kind of get it when, if someone's got something big to do in a scene, we'll just let that person do the scene, and we're fine filling in around their backs or whatever. We're not too precious."
Asked about David's upset at Gail planning her wedding and departure, Jack says, "I think he would've been more bothered about it, and you'd have seen probably more of a breakdown with him with her going if he wasn't completely preoccupied with the whole Shona thing as well, because that does take the weight. Nick's running off with the whole Toyah / Leanne debacle, Sarah is running after Bethany and all that, and the Daniel thing, so I think there's a lot going on, and it all seems to be falling apart." He adds, "Luckily, Gail seems to be oblivious to it all."
Jack then spoke about what it was like filming their final scenes in the knowledge that Helen Worth was going.
"Me,
Tina and Ben (who play Gail's daughter and son, Sarah and Nick) we all had us own emotional scenes with her separately.
I think there's this thing where she comes to each of us separately
in separate scenes and gives us basically a farewell, goodbye. Even in rehearsals, I couldn't really run it, I couldn't
really do it, because I know I've only got one go at it, I've only
got one take and then there'll be tears and then there won't be
anything else left."
"So, I can't really run the lines, which is a f***er for Helen. I said, I'll kind of mark it through. I just said to the director John Anderson, 'John, I can't do it.' I went, 'Are you doing the close first?' And he said, 'Yeah, I'll do the close.' And I said, 'Well get Helen and me, and then we can do wides and everything.' But I said, 'If we're going to do it, because it's me saying goodbye to Helen and it's Helen saying good bye to me after 25 years, I'm only probably gonna have one in me.'"
"And she was just worried about getting the lines right, and I was like, it doesn't matter, does it. Just say whatever you want. You're saying goodbye, you know? So, yeah, we did it, and it's really good. There were people on other units and other blocks and everything who were watching all the monitors."
"Her last scene filming was a scene with me and Julia in the Platts, and I went, 'No, no, no, her last scene has to be just all of us Platts.' And they were like, 'There isn't one where you're all together.' I went, 'Well f****ng write one! Just write one! You can!' So they went, 'Yeah, we can!' So they did, they wrote one and I went, 'We don't have to be doing anything, we can be all NS, not speaking. Just make sure we're all together in the Platts, for Gods' sakes, please, for when she finally goes. Don't just have someone random with her or whatever.' So they did. Luckily, they were able to do it and schedule it so that we were all together."
Describing how every unit broke and came down to the studio, which was full, Jack says, "I've
never seen that before. There was about 400 or 500 people all in the
studio."
"Lee, the first AD, came up to me and he went, 'What do you want to do, because I have every unit saying that they want to break and they all wanna come in and say goodbye.' And he went, 'If I ask her?' I said, 'She'll say no.' And he went, 'So what shall we do?' And I said, 'We'll just do it. She'll cry, she'll be emotional, but you're meant to be, that's the thing. It's 50 years!'"
"She wanted to do the back door, didn't want a fuss or anything, and I said, it's not so much for you; it's not you doing the fanfare, the big farewell it's for the building, it's for everyone, and it was really nice. And then we had a thing in Nick's Bistro, we had a little champagne, few drinks on the night, which was really lovely. They did a really nice montage, and it was great. Everybody was very happy. Me, Ben and Tina, we gave a little speech..." which, we were told by Corrie staff, made them all cry.
It was wonderful to hear these insights about Helen's departure from someone who is clearly immensely fond of her, and has worked with her so closely for half of her remarkable 50-year career on the Street. All that remains now is for us to watch the build up to her farewell, which happens on Christmas Day via an hour-long episode at 7pm.
I'm sure you can get the sense from this that there is never a dull moment at a Jack P. Shepherd interview, and by the sounds of it, the same goes for his character as David Platt will have more than enough to contend with this festive season.
By Emma Hynes
Read all about my recent trip to Coronation Street in A Rover Returns.
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