Emmerdale’s Kev Towsend star Chris Coghill has revealed he previously starred on the TV soap when he was only 17 years old.

Kev recently made a surprise appearance in the village in search of his husband, Robert Sugden (Ryan Hawley), after the pair met in prison.

He was still behind bars following an armed robbery, but due to a terminal illness, he was allowed day release to visit his partner Robert. Wanting to break off their relationship, Robert then visited Kev in prison but failed to go through with it.

The prisoner was later delighted to be granted parole as he reunited with Robert, who was desperate to keep his marriage a secret from Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller). Will Kev find out the truth?

 

Opening up about joining the ITV soap as bad boy Kev, actor Chris Coghill spoke to The Daily Star and other press outlets, confirming he is enjoying his new role.

He said: “I’m having a really good time, I am thoroughly enjoying being here. It’s an absolutely lovely place to work, it’s a beautiful place to work, especially in the village. It’s just stunning and everybody is lovely.”

Chris then confirmed he had previously starred on Emmerdale as a teenager in his first acting role.

He added: “Weirdly, my first ever job was on Emmerdale, I was 17 years old, which is 33 years ago. But I have also done Coronation Street, I have done a lot. This is very different to EastEnders.”

Before arriving on the ITV soap, Chris famously played child abuser Tony King in the long-running BBC soap.

In 2008, Tony was introduced as Bianca Jackson’s (Patsy Palmer) boyfriend, but he was secretly abusing her step-daughter, Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty).

The controversial storyline led to Chris missing out on certain roles, but the star feels proud that the hard-hitting storyline had an impact on the lives of some viewers.

He explained: “It was so controversial and pretty ground-ground-breaking at the time. The reaction to that was pretty big.

“People didn’t even want that to be on screen. People said it might get to the point where they couldn’t tell the difference between the character and you, but I didn’t really find that. People would be like, ‘You were really good in EastEnders’.”

Chris then explained how the plot encouraged victims of sexual abuse to speak out, he added: “It was afterwards when casting directors and so on would say, ‘We can’t really have him playing a romantic lead for a bit.’

“But one of the reactions to that was that five or six people actually went to prison because people saw that storyline and went, ‘That happened to me,’ and went to the police. As an actor, you don’t really change people’s lives, but that sort of did.”