Coronation Street star is ‘happy’ to finally end the Theo story | Soaps

The rise, fall and murder of abusive monster Theo Silverton (James Cartwright) has been a rollercoaster from start to finish. But there’s one Coronation Street star who was glad to see it end.

For months, Theo subjected his terrified partner Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce) to just about every kind of abuse imaginable.

As the signs of the nightmare Todd was enduring became more and more obvious, his loved ones grew to hate Theo more. Like all abusers, the raging narcissist worked hard to isolate his victim from his nearest and dearest such ashis boss and father figure George Shuttleworth (Tony Maudsley), his girlfriend Christina Boyd (Amy Robbins), and the closet thing he’s got to a daughter, Summer Spellman.

Theo’s reign of terror finally came to a close when he broke into the flat and tried to stop Todd leaving to Thailand, resulting in a terrifying game of cat and mouse which ended with the vile bully dead on the Cobbles at the hands of a mystery attacker.

Todd’s abuse story was over. Corrie’s murder whodunnit had begun.

It couldn’t happen soon enough for Harriet Bibby, who play Summer. In a recent chat with Metro, the actress revealed why she was glad to see the Theo story end.

‘There were a lot of potential murder victims at the start so when we learned that it was going to be Theo, I wasn’t necessarily excited, but I was definitely happy it was going to put an end to the horror for Summer, and definitely for it to put an end to the fear of Todd being hurt again. There was also the fear of her being hurt, because Theo did threaten Summer a couple of times as well, so I think it gave a definite full stop to that.’

Most of the characters on the list of subjects hated Theo because of what he did to Todd. So does Summer, but she’s got her own reason for wanting the sinister scaffolder out of the picture. He was so jealous of Summer’s adoptive father and Todd’s ex Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank), that he left him to die in a mini-bus crash.

Determined to bring her father’s killer to justice, Summer was even prepared to hand his life insurance payout over to  Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard), and it was recently revealed that she kept a journal detailing fantasies about holding a gun to Theo’s head.

This is not the kind of behaviour we’ve come to expect from the Girl Next Door to The Rovers. Harriet Bibby reflects on her character’s dark side.

‘I think we’ve seen a lot of level headed Summer in the past, although she can be quite reactive as well. Now that she doesn’t have Billy, and Todd’s been going through what he’s been going through, she’s really had to kind of cement herself and make her own decisions. So I am really excited to see a different side to Summer and for people to question whether or not she could be capable of doing something like this.’

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But is Summer truly capable of murder? Maybe. She was the last person to see Theo alive. On the night of the murder, she was searching the flat for something when Theo interrupted her with that chilling but somehow hilarious line ‘I guess Summer had to end some time.’

Which isn’t even the first time he’s threatened her life. Would Summer kill to protect herself? Harriet seems to think so.

‘I think there’s a scenario where she might have felt like it was either her that was going to be hurt, or maybe even killed, or it was him. I think when people are pushed to that point, it’s interesting to see what they will do to survive. It’s no secret that Theo was very threatening, he even said that he was going to bury Summer if she got in his way, so there could have been a moment where she felt like it was either her or him.’

In upcoming episodes, Summer is set to be suspect number one when she is pulled in to the police station for questioning. Worse still, George Shuttleworth, who’s been like a second dad to Summer, is starting to doubt her innocence after stumbling on her journal.Suddenly, the most unlikely suspect of all is the top of the list.

Harriet seems to be enjoying it though, as she shared some positive reactions from friends and fans alike.

‘It is really cool. I mean in soap a big who done it theme is always a really exciting one to be part of. Even the episode where it was revealed that it was Theo that died had everyone talking.
The amount of people so far who I’ve bumped into who have said, ‘did you do it? Was it you? People really do start to question the characters, and like George who is now second guessing Summer, so is the audience as well.’

‘You see this sweet girl, who you probably would never think is capable of murder, but this changes everything. I literally got a message from my friend saying, her Mum’s text her to say, did Harriet kill Theo? Was it her? So there’s definitely a buzz around the story and it is really exciting to be involved in. It makes people question your character, what they’re capable of doing and that’s a lot of fun.’

Like all of our suspects, Summer will be grilled by DS Kit Green (Jacob Roberts) and DS Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) as the police close in on Theo’s killer.

Loyal Corrie fans are more used to seeing Summer in the Corner Shop in the Rovers than a police interview. Harriet shares how unexpected and different it feels to have her character in uncharted territory.

‘Yeah, it’s quite different. Being interviewed by the police, in that police cell environment, it’s a very different sort of scene. When we went into the police questioning rooms, I said I’ve never been in here, and everyone was like, what?

‘But Summer’s such a good character, she’s not really mischievous, she’s not evil, we’ve not seen her seek revenge before. So this is such a flip on its head. She’s such an unexpected suspect in this, but it’s also completely understandable why she’s a suspect, and so she should be.’ 

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