Chris Coghill, the actor behind Emmerdale's Kev Townsend, has admitted he despises his character's frequent musical performances, which have included covers of hits by Daniel Bedingfield, Boyzone, and the Spice Girls since Kev arrived in the Yorkshire Dales.
Asked by Metro if he enjoys performing the sing-along scenes, Coghill replied: 'Absolutely not, I hate them.' He added: 'No! If I could sing, I wouldn't have been an actor. If I could sing, I'd have been in a band in the 1990s.'
Negotiating a Christmas Truce
Despite his aversion, Coghill revealed a playful bargain with Emmerdale boss Laura Shaw: 'Laura 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 until Christmas 2029, I'll do it then.' We're in constant negotiations. It's excruciating. Horrible.'
The actor also shared a condition he set when first taking the role: that Kev would not die from the 'terminal' heart condition that helped him escape prison. 'When I was originally coming into it the first time round, they were like, 'Kev's this horrible manipulator who's forced Robert [Sugden] to marry him in prison, he's coming out and he's going to die from a heart problem.' And then I said, 'I'm not going to do it if he dies.' So they said, 'Alright, he's not going to die, he pretends he's going to die.'
Kev's Evolution and Public Reaction
Reflecting on the character's popularity, Coghill noted the mixed reactions on social media: 'There's people going, 'Kev's really funny!' and other people going, 'Yeah, but what about the time he stabbed himself in prison to emotionally blackmail Robert?' Robert's an absolute lying piece of…'
He defended Kev's relationship with Robert, saying: 'Nothing that came out of [Robert's] mouth the entire time Kev was with Robert was true! I always knew the timescale that first bit was going to play out over, but as we did it and, to an extent, the way I was doing it, it was like, 'Oh… The writing's slightly different.'
Explaining Kev's evolution, Coghill said: 'It became a bit funnier and more endearing. He had a bit more of a vulnerable side. There's scenes where he can go from being a psycho, to vulnerable to quite slapstick and hapless, then back to being scary again, all in one scene, which is quite unusual to do.'
He added: 'When I left the first time, they said, 'This wasn't what we intended to happen,' and then they asked me to come back within about five weeks. This time, now I've come back, there's a lot more of the sympathetic side coming out.'
On public encounters, Coghill revealed the most common question he gets is 'Have you got Lemon Drizzle?' He elaborated: 'I've not had that many in-depth conversations with people on the street, but the ones I have had have been people going, 'Kev!' And you go, 'Yeah!' 'You're great!' 'Thank you!' Nobody's had a go at me.'
Comparing to his EastEnders days, he said: 'I know this is a different thing, but when I started EastEnders, with the character I was doing in that, they were like, 'There's people out there who really can't tell the difference between what they see on telly and what's real life, and because of the character you're playing, you're going to get a lot of s*** and you might need police protection…' And then you go out and people are like, 'You're brilliant in EastEnders, mate.' Although I did get hit over the head with a handbag in Selfridges, but apart from that…'
