The RTÉ Guide's Suzanne Byrne chats to Coronation Street star Graeme Hawley to find out just how far John Stape is willing to go to keep his new identity.
If you were to meet John Stape for the first time you would probably think he was a respectable, up-standing member of the Weatherfield community. His clothes, his mannerisms and his friendly but quiet nature, all have the makings of one of those neighbours that’ll you’ll always have a wave and a smile for. However, dig a little deeper and you will soon find that there’s a lot more to John Stape than meets the eye. Up to a few years he was a teacher at the local secondary school, but got fired after his affair with 16-year-old Rosie Webster was exposed.
Soon after that he was sent to prison for abducting Rosie, his way of making her pay for ruining his relationship with Fiz and his career. Somehow Fiz forgave the cheating teacher and they got married. But that wasn’t enough for John, he wanted his teaching job back and earlier this year he stole his friend Colin Fishwick’s identity (Fishwick had left for Canada) and has been masquerading in a new school as Colin ever since.
He’s lied to his friends, colleagues and neighbours and now it seems those lies are about to come back and haunt him – literally. You see Colin has returned from Canada and discovered John’s deceit. And then there is the matter of Charlotte, John’s old colleague whom John was forced to reveal his lies to. She has seized the opportunity to turn this into a win-win situation for herself by blackmailing him. A showdown between John and Colin is inevitable, but someone is not going to survive it...
Colin is coming back - is John ready to give up Colin?
In true John style no! He’s constantly trying to think of ways he can continue to get away with it and to convince Colin to let him hang onto his identity for a bit longer. But it soon becomes obvious that it’s not going to happen. He also has the added complication of Charlotte, who’s winding up the whole situation and making life very difficult for him. Fiz desperately wants him to give it all up, all her worst fears are coming true, but Charlotte’s implying she won’t let him quit the job just yet.
How does Colin react to the news that John has taken on his identity?
Initially he’s very accommodating about it, but he becomes a lot less accommodating about it very quickly. There’s the added complication that the husband of the woman Colin had been having an affair with before he went off to Canada has been released from prison (Ben Fielding) and he’s now looking for Colin Fishwick. Colin wants to get away again so he wants his identity back and he starts to become a lot more forceful about it.
John turns to Charlotte for help, why?
It’s a terrible idea to call Charlotte but he can’t talk to Fiz as he’s told her that’s he’s already resigned and he just needs somebody to talk to and she’s the only person he can turn to for help. She’s the worst person in the world for him to ring really, but John Stape does have form for making these kind of mistakes.
How does Colin react?
Colin then says he wants money in order to start a new life and if he doesn’t get it he’s going to go to the police. He doesn’t have any money so it all starts to get very complicated and very heated. In the end John does say he’ll resign but by then Colin has decided he wants money so the game really is up.
What happens when Ben Fielding arrives on the street looking for Colin?
By then Colin has got a job at a book store in town so when this guy comes around threatening John, as he believes him to be Colin, Fiz panics thinking he’s going to beat him up again and tells him where Colin works. He goes and finds Colin himself and beats him up. That’s what really turns Colin, in his eyes John has set him up, he wants the money or he’s going to the police.
There’s a big showdown between John, Colin and Charlotte. What happens?
There’s a meeting at the Stapes house between John, Charlotte and Colin. It quickly deteriorates when Colin realises John hasn’t got the money and says he’s going to go to the police. A scuffle breaks out between them and Colin ends up collapsing and dying.
How to John and Charlotte react to Colin’s dead body?
John doesn’t know what to do and Charlotte’s falling apart but they’ve got to make decisions and they’ve got to make them quickly. The implications of what they’re going to do afterwards are very serious.
Does Charlotte help John?
Charlotte is very little help and a very big hindrance. She’s even worse in this situation that John but she’s heavily involved and the implications for both of them are deadly serious.
So has John killed Colin?
Well he’s not a cold blooded killer but as always with John Stape things happen and run out of his control. If you hadn’t seen what happens before you’d think he was a killer but the reality is very different.
Suzanne Byrne
