Do you remember when you first started watching Coronation Street?
Of course you do, it’s a fairly big milestone for anyone who grew up in and around the UK and Ireland.
I was nine-years-old, the Euro was about to come in, and Richard Hillman had just tried to suffocate Emily Bishop with a pillow.
2001 was a pretty formative time for me and I’m pretty certain a lot of that is due to getting into Corrie during Richard’s reign of terror.
And in fairness to me, if there was ever a better time to start watching the soap it was when that lad was running around the place causing absolute mischief.
Lately, everybody’s favourite ITV soap has been inundated with the trials and tribulations of Pat Phelan, the show’s latest villain/murderer/guy who fell in a pile of cement last night who absolutely should have died but didn’t and everybody was very annoyed about it.
Phelan’s reign of terror has been going on for a long time.
Like, too long.
Technically, he ticks all the proverbial soap villain boxes – he’s scary, he’s killed people, he has absolutely no remorse, and he’s a man.
But there’s one thing about Pat Phelan that just won’t let him become the greatest Corrie villain of all time – he’s not Richard Hillman.
Hillman had it all – a murky backstory, a meticulous desire to convince people that they had Alzheimer’s disease, Gail Platt as a love interest.
It was all going on.
If you can’t remember exactly what Richard’s whole deal was other than the fact that he was a cultural soap icon, let me refresh your memory.
Richard showed up to the cobbles in 2001 under the guise that his cousin had died.
He got involved with Gail who was still clearly reeling from her breakup with Martin and proceeded to buy Sarah and David a load of gifts so they would think he was merely their mam’s cool boyfriend instead of a literal serial killer.
Richard’s rampage started off quite chill enough – he needed money so he let his co-worker die to cash in on the very unfortunate accident that took his life.
He then realised that to get money he could just kill a load of people and lie to some others, which went well enough for him for a while until Audrey caught onto him, figured out she didn’t actually have Alzheimer’s and started trying to trigger his downfall.
After a while, Gail also figured out what the craic is, confronted Richard, called him “Norman Bates with a briefcase” (classic Gail), and he ran off.
At this stage, Richard was apparently the most wanted man in Britain but that didn’t matter in the realm of Corrie because he still managed to sneak back to the Platts’ house a few weeks later and take them all captive.
And so ensued the single greatest hour of soap based television to have ever graced our screens.
In an episode that was absolutely as intense, if not more so, than any and all of the Saw movies combined, Richard tied up his family, put them in the car, and drove them into the canal.
Little did he know that Gail, the ol’ dog, had slipped Sarah a pair of scissors meaning that they were all able to free themselves and swim to the surface to be rescued.
Richard, God rest his soul, died as he lived – alone, struggling, and without the children he so desperately craved to have (he was sterile).
The Richard Hillman storyline wasn’t just another plot for Corrie – it was an event.
It happened during a time where internet access was shockingly sparse, soap spoilers came in the form of press shots printed in TV guides, and nine-year-olds like me were only gagging for a bit of excitement in their lives.
19.4 million people tuned in to watch Richard drive his family into the canal.
The storyline made Coronation Street the most watched television programme in the UK in 2003, with two specific episodes involving Maxine’s death causing a national power surge due to viewing figures that were later described as “truly staggering.”
What made Richard the iconic character that he’s still known as today was a combination of all of the above, good writing, and the fact that he was genuinely terrifying.
He was also caught out within a realistic time frame, which simply cannot be said for most of the soap villains who have come and gone before him.
Richard was the greatest of the great, the pinnacle of Weatherfield-based evil, and to put it quite simply, some lad.
They just don’t write them like that anymore.
