David Platt (Coronation Street)

This page is about the fictional Coronation Street character, David Platt. For the English footballer see David Platt

David Platt is a fictional character on the popular ITV soap opera Coronation Street. He is currently portrayed by Jack P Shepherd, who is the second actor to play the character.

Storylines

David is the son of Martin and Gail Platt, born on Christmas Day 1990. His first major storyline occurred when his parents split up and his mother remarried Richard Hillman. Hillman turned out to be deeply in debt and his attempts to get out of trouble ended in a killing spree. David — along with his mother, sister, and niece — was kidnapped, bound, and gagged by Hillman, who attempted to drown the entire family by driving their car into a canal.

When Martin moved away to Liverpool with new girlfriend Robyn in 2005, David's unhappiness increased. David refused to visit his father after he revealed he and Robyn were having a baby together. He was jealous when his mother found a new boyfriend, Phil Nail, and during 2006 carried out an anonymous greeting card campaign that resulted in Phil and Gail splitting up, as Gail suspected Phil of sending the cards, which were signed "Richard". After Phil had left, Gail managed to trick David into proving that he had been sending the cards.

Truancy

In 2006, David began playing truant from school, and falsely claiming that he was the victim of school bullying, which resulted in him being tutored at home. In October of that year, David discovered that Maria Sutherland, to whom he was attracted, was having an affair with builder Charlie Stubbs. David sought to interfere in their affair, threatening to expose their liaisons to the rest of Weatherfield. He started a hate campaign against Charlie Stubbs, vandalising his property and slashing his tires. Charlie attempted to put a stop to David's activities by intimidating him. He lured David to his apartment, dragged him into the bathroom and almost drowned him in the bathtub in a controversial torture scene.

Ivy's diary

In December 2006, David came into possession of a diary belonging to his late grandmother, Ivy Brennan. He discovered that his mother had wanted him aborted, but his father, Martin, had stopped her. He produced the diary during Christmas Day dinner and told everyone how his mum had wanted a termination. After wrecking Gail's Christmas, he then embarrassed his grandmother, Audrey Roberts, by revealing her affair with Bill Webster to Bill's unsuspecting wife Maureen.

Blackmail and perjury

When Charlie was brutally murdered by his lover, Tracy Barlow, David decided to punish Maria by helping Tracy. David told Gail about how Charlie had tried to kill him, and falsely claimed that he had witnessed Tracy killing Charlie in self-defence. He also began to blackmail Tracy, demanding that she be nice to him or else he would not testify in her defence. When David took the stand at Tracy's murder trial, his testimony went disastrously wrong. The prosecution highlighted the flaws in his evidence, and the Judge rebuked him for his attitude. David was outraged when Tracy was convicted and jailed for life to which he responded by branding the judge and jury 'mad'.

Expulsion and employment

David went on to set fire to one of his test papers after an exam. He was suspended from school, but managed to gain an A* in one of his GCSEs. David was then given a job at the builder's yard, from where he was twice fired for misconduct, before being given a job in the hairdressing salon run by his grandmother, Audrey.

David made friends with Mel Morton, and thought they were going out. However David’s sister Sarah told Mel that David was a fanatic who stalked women, and Mel stood David up. David spread a rumour that he had dumped Mel after sleeping with her, but was forced by his mother to publicly apologize.

On another occasion, Gail caught David shaving the head of one of Bethany’s dolls with a pair of electric clippers. A shocked Gail could not imagine what David was doing. He informed her that he was merely practising for his grandmother’s salon.

In September 2007, David hid some Ecstasy tablets ("E”) in one of Beth's dolls. One evening, David was left to babysit Beth, and failed to notice as she consumed one of the pills, thinking it was a sweet. Beth was taken to intensive care, and David almost arrested for possession of a Class-A Drug. Bethany went on to make a full recovery, and David was let off with a warning.

Gail kicked David out of the house, and he was taken in by his grandmother, Audrey. When Sarah refused to invite him to her and Jason's wedding, David vowed that there would be no wedding. The day before the event, David then left Gail a note threatening to commit suicide. Sarah found it first and destroyed it. On the morning of the wedding, David drove his car to the canal, and left a phone message for his mother, blaming her for killing himself. Then, at the exact point where Richard Hillman had previously tried to kill the Platt family, he drove the car at full speed into the canal, witnessed by a passerby. Later, David turned up at the house, having escaped from the car. After being made a fuss of by Gail, he encountered Sarah as she was about to leave for her honeymoon, and made it clear that he had not intended to kill himself, merely to ruin the wedding.

David's uncle, Stephen Reid, came to visit while on business in Europe, and offered David a job and an apartment abroad, in Milan. David's plans were sabotaged by his sister Sarah, who obtained Ecstasy tablets and planted them in David's drawer at the salon, arranging for Audrey to find them. Gail was furious, and Stephen withdrew his offer to David. Nobody believed David's version of events. The subsequent news that Sarah would be going to Italy instead of him left David furious.

In January, 2008, Tina McIntyre arrived on the Street. Tina was first seen at the health centre arguing with Gail Platt. Impressed by seeing someone else give his mother grief, David became smitten with her, eventually losing his virginity to Tina. Later, Tina discovered that she was pregnant. Gail agreed to help Tina obtain a termination. During an argument with Gail following his discovery of her involvement in Tina's abortion, David pushed his mother down the stairs. After convincing Tina not to tell the police about Gail's accident she dumped him. He was furious and to make matters worse his mother began to remember the day of the accident. Gail began to interrogate her son, resulting in David proceeding to smash up various vehicles and windows on the street and tried to attack Ken Barlow and elbow a policewoman. David was then arrested and spent the night in custody. When he came home David admitted to Gail that he had tried to commite suicide just to ruin Sarah's wedding. On April 18 he was sentenced to 4 months in a Young Offenders Institution.

Reception

Fearing real-life imitation of the scene in which David was tortured by Charlie Stubbs, many formal complaints were filed by viewers with the Government’s Office of Communications. In the end, "Coronation Street … [was] cleared by TV watchdogs after 31 complaints about scenes of ‘bullying and torture’." Investigators eventually ruled that the torture scenes "were editorially justified by plot development, characters involved and the manner of editing."

External links

• Profile of David Platt at What's on TV