Coronation Street’s sickening grooming storyline that’s seen paedophile high school teacher Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon) groom and sexually abuse school boy Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) is hurtling to a conclusion, but there’s still a way to go.
Megan has wreaked havoc. Not only has she abused Will, a former, equally damaged victim, Lee (Oscar Aldersley), has made his presence known, while she pushed Sam Blakeman (Jude Riordan) to a full-scale psychiatric breakdown after she psychologically tortured him upon his discovery of her dark secrets.
Despite her exposure, Megan continued her sick grooming to ensure Will denied everything to the police, managing to remain at arm’s length from the law, while also desperately plotting her own escape to another country, and it seemed she’d get away with everything, too.
Unlikely hero Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine) shared his own experience of sexual abuse to truly get through to Will as he attempted to flee with her. With his eyes finally opened to the true scope of Megan’s dark side, Will made the incredibly brave decision to report her to the police.
Determined to destroy the case before it gets anywhere near a courtroom, Megan has returned to trying to manipulate Will, attempting to remind him of their ‘love’ while convincing him to retract his allegations against her.
While we know Megan’s end is nearing, there’s still plenty of twists and turns to come, as Megan’s mum, Janine, is due to arrive on the cobbles, played by Melissa Jacques.
Talking to TV Times magazine about Janine, Catherine Tyldesley, who plays Will’s stepmum Eva Price, said: ‘When Janine reveals who she is, it’s like a red rag to a bull for Ben [Driscoll (Aaron McCusker)]. Janine tries to apologise on behalf of Megan.
She is bewildered as to why this happened. But, sometimes, people grow up in normal, loving families and things go extremely wrong. That’s what Eva sees.
‘She’s like, ‘It’s not Janine’s fault.’ Then you’ve got Maggie, who’s like, ‘Well, Megan has learnt this behaviour from someone!”
Corrie boss Kate Brooks has previously teased what the Driscoll family will face in the aftermath of Megan’s abuse, and that Megan will pay for her crimes.
‘It’s about the family falling apart, but then kind of building themselves back up again as they try desperately to kind of repair the damage that Megan’s done.
‘Will will be quite badly affected by what he’s been through with Megan. It does go a bit dark.
‘Obviously, there are soap Gods, and as in soap God’s law, there’ll be some kind of retribution for Megan. She cannot get off of this scot-free. We will go down the proper channels.
‘Whether it goes on to plan or not, I cannot say, but it goes down quite a very big path.’
Beth has spoken about how fascinating she’s found the complexities of embodying the truly awful character.
‘I mean, I love playing Megan because she’s so horrible. They’re my favourite types of characters to play. But I’ve loved it.
‘It’s such a, like, there’s so much room to play with her because she just tells lies like they’re nothing. So there’s so many layers to the character.’
‘It’s quite interesting because I think there’s people who are trying to understand her because we’ve never gone into why she’s doing the things that she’s doing.’
‘Like, why is she grooming young boys? There’s no justification because it’s unjustifiable, isn’t it, really?
‘But I think that’s really nice from the storytelling point of view that there’s no point in justifying it, we don’t know why she’s doing it and it doesn’t matter. So I think that’s great because it’s great for me because I can kind of just justify it as Megan, however she would.’
