Coronation Street’s Gareth Pierce: ‘Todd has shame over Theo’s murder’

Coronation Street star Gareth Pierce has said that his character Todd will be feeling “a great deal of shame” over husband Theo’s murder.

In shock scenes that played out last week and culminated on Friday, domestic abuser Theo (James Cartwright) was discovered dead, having fallen from height off scaffolding.

After many months of abuse, Todd finally came clean to friends last month after a particularly savage beating – and reported Theo to the police.

Speaking about Todd’s reaction to Theo’s death, Pierce said: “It’s a real cocktail of emotions, in a similar way to what you’ve already seen in the police station immediately after the last really bad beating. He was there to report Theo but there was still that real conflict of emotions where he’s almost defending this person, even though he’s at least woken up enough to realise he has to get out of the relationship in that moment.

“This is very similar. Upon finding it’s Theo that’s died, there must be some relief, but I think there’s also a great deal of shame. It had got to that stage where there’s some self-blame for Todd, it must be a horrible feeling when you know something has suddenly got so much more serious and so beyond your ability to control the situation. He must also be really, really scared as well.”

Soon it becomes clear that Theo was murdered and the police launch an investigation – and Todd is an obvious suspect.

“I think definitely our audience will have those suspicions and actually we see that Todd certainly has plenty of motive, some might even go as far as to say justification, after having to remain stoic in the face of such sustained provocation,” Pierce continued.

“It’s interesting to think is anyone capable of murder in extreme circumstances. I think we all hope to think of it as far more black and white or good and evil, but I think it’s probably often much more grey in real life. Certainly in a show like ours you get a sense that, maybe Theo really did push him that far.”

New episodes of Coronation Street are released weekdays at 7am on ITVX and also air the same night at 8.30pm on ITV1.