Soap star Christopher Coghill has revealed he was once hit over the head with a handbag by a viewer who was appalled at his on-screen antics.<\/p>\n
The actor, who plays Kev Barton in Emmerdale, describes his character as “a sympathetic psychopath, if you will”, adding he is not concerned about being cast as a villain following his experience playing paedophile Tony King in EastEnders in 2008.<\/p>\n
He said: “You’ve got to give people a bit of credit. When I started in EastEnders, there were people who were like, ‘You know, there are people out there who really can\u2019t tell the difference between what they see on telly and real life, and because of the character you\u2019re playing, you\u2019re going to get a lot of s***, and you might need police protection\u2019.”<\/p>\n
“And then you go out, and people go, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re brilliant in EastEnders\u2019, and that was kind of it.<\/p>\n
“I did get hit over the head with a handbag in Selfridges, but apart from that\u2026”<\/p>\n
His Emmerdale co-star William Ash, who plays Caleb Miligan, said he has had the same experience, adding: “People are genuinely generally really nice. You don\u2019t get any grief, really. I did have one woman at the at the petrol station going \u2018oh, you\u2019re right horrible to Moira\u2019.”<\/p>\n
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The pair, who have previously acted together in the 2003 drama Burn It and played brothers in both the 2006 one-off comedy Magnolia and a 2016 episode of Moving On, are currently caught up in an Emmerdale storyline involving an attack on Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle) at the depot.<\/p>\n
Kev is the guilty party and Caleb has the assault on CCTV, but has been covering it up so he can frame his arch-nemesis, Joe Tate (Ned Porteous).<\/p>\n
Cohgill said of the footage: “I hold my hands up, it does look bad \u2013 I am bent over him with a crowbar and he\u2019s in a pool of blood.”<\/p>\n
However, it may not be the bargaining tool that Caleb thinks it is.<\/p>\n
Ash said: “I think [Caleb and wife Ruby, played by Beth Cordingly] just don\u2019t know how to handle him, like most people in the village. It\u2019s like he\u2019s such a loose cannon. You just don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to get from him.”<\/p>\n
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Coghill is also adamant he does not want his character to have any more singing scenes, after his character serenaded his estranged husband Robert (Ryan Hawley) with If You\u2019re Not the One by Daniel Bedingfield and then tried to express his feelings to long-lost son Lewis (Bradley Riches) with a version of Boyzone\u2019s Father and Son.<\/p>\n
Coghill said: “Do you know what, [producer] Laura Shaw did say to me the other week, do you want to do All I Want For Christmas Is You? And I said, if you keep me till Christmas 2029, I\u2019ll do it then. That\u2019s how my contract negotiations are going. But no, it\u2019s excruciating. Horrible.”<\/p>\n
“If I could sing, I wouldn\u2019t be an actor. If I could sing, I would have been in a band in the 1990s.”<\/p>\n
Emmerdale airs weeknights on Virgin Media One and ITV1.<\/p>\n
Source: Press Association<\/p>\n