Coronation Street's Jack: 'I made David a villain'

Coronation Street actor Jack P Shepherd has revealed it was his idea to give his character David Platt a dark side.

The character arrived in Weatherfield in 2000, but has become increasingly twisted in recent years, faking suicide and pushing his mum down the stairs.

"The good thing with Corrie is that they give you loads of freedom," said Jack. "They'll give you a script with lines on and you say it however you want.

"There was this one scene where I decided to do it differently where I was having an argument with Gail about Richard Hillman and why we never talked about it.

"My mum was my drama coach and we both decided that I didn't want to run upstairs and slam my door, because I'd done all that and I couldn't be bothered any more.

"So I thought, 'Why don't I do it in an evil, menacing, sinister type of way, lower my eyes and really hit it home to her that I do blame her for Richard Hillman?' So I did, and it completely changed the way the producers saw David."

So it's all down to Jack that David is such a brilliant soap villain?

"I don't want to take all the praise, but yeah!" he laughed, quickly adding: "No, most of the credit has to go to the writers and the producers who have thought up brilliant storylines for him, because I haven't had any influence on those whatsoever. I have to take my little hat off to them."