In soap land, they’re as popular as cheating spouses and tearful vigils at life support machines. No wonder soap operas have always tried to outdo each other when it comes to villains. Alan Corr rounds up our top soap sinners.
If there was ever an easy way to draw a distinction between the Carry On in 'Coronation Street' and the grim kitchen sink drama of 'EastEnders', it is by a close examination of their villains.
Up in Weatherfield, bad ‘uns take on the straight bug-eyed dementia of Richard Hillman or the Midwich Cuckoo tendencies of David Platt. Way down south in Londinium, villains come with the malicious promise of something just a bit more sinister – 'Dirty' Den was a suave lady killer who fooled everybody and Janine Butcher is a self-hating mega bitch who really is as unpredictable as Ian Beale’s next man-trum.
Across in the Dales in Emmerdale, villains are of the squinting widow, curtain-twitching variety (less minds to mess with and no easy access to decent broadband possibly) and in dear old Carraigstown, local baddies have been known to take on the murderous menace of Dublin gangland dons. Think Billy Meehan and current bad boy, Zumo.
But from rural rascal to city creeps, they all have one thing in common – soap villains are what keep the millions watching and waiting to relish their next dastardly move. Here are our top 'recurring drama' baddies, the men and women who put the bitter tang of carbolic into our beloved soap operas.
'Dirty' Den Watts (Leslie Grantham)
EastEnders was always going to try and set itself apart from its long-running northern rival and when it began in February 1985 there was a smell of sulphur in the air with the discovery of a corpse. Yup, here was a pretender to the Corrie throne which wasn’t going to be about Ena Sharples hairnet or Betty’s hotpot and it was Den Watts who quickly emerged to be the most eminently watchable thing in soap land.
He was the Queen Vic's original landlord, a manipulative ladies' man with a devilish grin and a way with words. It was the JR/Sue Ellen styled relationship with his wife where 'Enders producers really hit pay dirt and Den’s intolerable cruelty to poor Ang was truly compelling. As if her tragic hair wasn’t enough to content with.
A record-breaking thirty million (wow) viewers tuned in to see Den serve his missus with divorce papers on Christmas Day 1986. Den also famously got teenager Michelle Fowler pregnant, and his affair with mistress Jan drove Angie to attempt suicide.
But it wasn’t the trail of women scorned who were to do for Den - he got involved with a criminal outfit known as The Firm, and was shot 'dead' by a hitman by the canal in 1989. Actually, it looked like he’d been shot dead by a bunch of daffodils. However, he made a shock return from the grave in 2003 and got his son's girlfriend Zoe Slater pregnant, before he was brutally murdered by wife Chrissie. Yup, Den was the daddy of soap baddies.
Janine Evans (nee Butcher) (Charlie Brooks)
Janine flitted in an out of Walford and was played by two other actresses before Charlie Brooks established her as the baddest of all bad girls a few years back. From the word go, Janine was a troublesome child. Neglected by her father Frank, she threw tantrums, wet the bed, ran away from home, sleep walked, and became a thief, a compulsive liar and a self-harmer. Clearly this girl has self esteem issues and is incapable of love and she just got worse as she grew up. She bankrolled her cocaine addiction by turning to prostitution and was a dab hand at gold digging and blackmail (including extorting from Ian Beale so we’ll let her away with that one). Storylines around this serial seductress, gold-digging super bitch have often teased the bounds of pre-watershed acceptability and that is what makes her such fun to watch.
David Platt (Jack P Shepherd)
Where to begin with this Freudian car crash of a young man? At a mere 21 years of age, David Platt has already become an over achiever in the soap villain stakes. He’s tried to drive his mum mad, drove his car into the local canal in a bid to sabotage her wedding day, pushed her down the stairs and tried to trade favourable courtroom evidence in return for sexual favours.
Yes you could call this lad a psychoplatt but he was at a disadvantage from the very beginning – Gail is his mother. Gail, who seriously needs to get down from that cross, has mollycoddled and forgave him his many transgressions proving that a mother’s love is not always a blessing; sometimes it’s an impediment to securing an ASBO. There is also the trauma David endured at the dirty hands of Richard Hillman (see below) the serial killer who nearly did for all the Platts in another car-borne canal dive but we reckon that young David is just bad to the bone for the hell of it.
Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis)
The whole concept of a baddy on a daytime Aussie soap is a bit comical really but Neighbours made a bold attempt to introduce a touch of evil into the perma-smiling denizens of Errinsborough with the arrival of Paul Robinson. Not only did he have deeply suspect hair (and we don’t care if it was the eighties) but Paul though he could hide his nasty ways by dressing up as a respectable businessman. He plied his ruthless trade as the owner of the Lassiter's complex but he was accused of fraud and forced to flee the country. Years later, on his release from prison, he returned to Erinsborough to burn down Lassiter's - killing Gus Cleary in the process. Then he plotted to split up David and Liljana Bishop so he could embark on a short-lived affair with her. Shortly afterwards, he married his fourth wife, Lyn Scully, but abandoned her hours after their wedding. What an odious Aussie he was.
Richard Hillman (Brian Capron)
Poor old Gail. Not only is she the mother of Damian from The Omen but her choice of men has been pretty bad too. The worse of the lot was Richard Hillman. This smooth-talking, twice-married conman first sauntered into her life in the summer of 2001 claiming to be a relative of Alma's. In fact he was a conniving fraudster who was to evolve into a fully-fledged serial killer. He murdered one Street resident as well as his first wife (smashed her face in with a spade on a building site) and attempted to kill several others. Oh and he beat lovely old Emily Bishop up with a crow bar. However, his coup de (dis)grace came on the night he took Gail, her kids, David and Sarah, and Sarah’s daughter for a moonlight drive into the canal. They all survived but he finally went straight to hell. Hillman’s exploits was real power surge telly (the National Grid went la la in the UK as 19 million people watched his watery ending). It was Gail herself, who summed up this nasty piece of work brilliantly when she described him as Norman Bates with a briefcase.
The Mitchell Brothers (Steve McFadden/Ross Kemp)
Like two bullet-headed bulldogs, these brothers grim held sway over Albert Square for many a puce-coloured moon back in the nineties. Phil `n’ Grant (innit) were a double act straight out of the Kray twin’s book of badness and they even ‘ad a dear old mum in the shape of Peggy (Barbara Windsor). The boys swaggered into the Square in 1990 and their many acts of casual cruelty, mayhem and violence included a bizarre love triangle involving Sharon, the much-hyped whodunnit, dubbed “Who Shot Phil?” and a short drive off a bridge into the Thames with both brothers on board. Grant left ‘Enders in 1999 but made a brief return in 2005 and since then Phil has actually mellowed. Well, if you’ll excuse the alcoholism, crack addiction and relationship strife. However, for making Ian Beale’s life miserable Phil is to be more admired than feared these days.
Billy Meehan (Stuart Dunne)
Meehan by name, mean by nature. Look up the expression “murderous, drug-dealing pimp” in any dictionary (well, any specialised dictionary) and you’ll find a picture of Billy Meehan staring insolently back at you. He was the ferret-faced local thug who terrorised Carraigstown about ten years ago and he was played with palpable menace by actor Stuart Dunne. In terms of Fair City’s well executed handling of social realism down through the years, the Billy storyline was arguably the show’s greatest moment. Billy wasn’t just bad he was brutal. The kind of scuzzball crim who’d flash a grin as he turned the knife and torched your kids’ Lego set for laughs. He was offed brilliantly by Lorcan by a seven iron and you could hear the cheers from Carlingford to Cahirciveen. Fore!
