With the reveal last night (May 26) that Daniel was the person who pushed Ken down the stairs and nearly killed him on Coronation Street, producer of the soap Kate Oakes spoke to the media about the decision to make him the man behind the book.
Ken almost died following the attack / Credit: ITV
“Once we’d established Daniel’s backstory – and we wanted to bring him in with a really rich backstory – we thought about the idea that Denise had abandoned him. It was the idea of a kid raising himself, and the fact that he wouldn’t have been able to bring friends home from school because people would have seen how shabby things were. He would have been always coming up with excuses for parents’ evening or sports day. It was just that he was so incredibly damaged.”
He continued: “Because Daniel is Ken’s favourite in many ways, he’s also the one who stands the greatest chance of Ken forgiving him. We talked about it for a long time before we’d even cast Rob in the role – and we always thought it should be Daniel.”
When asked about Daniel almost regressing to being a young boy again in next week’s episodes, Oates added: “That’s why Ken can forgive him. The first two episodes next week are about Ken fearing Daniel, but then he has a breakdown and what Ken sees is a little boy who is completely lost. All of Ken’s paternal feelings come out.”
So how will Daniel face up to his crime? Therapy could be the answer.
“There’s a moment coming up which I won’t spoil,” says Oates, “but I have seen and it’s great. Daniel frightens himself into a situation where he feels he does need to get himself on the straight and narrow and we do refer to anger management.”
Coronation Street continues throughout the week on ITV.
Tagged in Coronation Street