Coronation Street legend Jimmi Harkishin has heaped praised on his on-screen daughter Tanisha Gorey as Asha Alahan appears to make a suicide attempt.
As viewers of the ITV soap have seen, Asha has been struggling with anxiety and panic attacks following a disastrous shift working as a paramedic.
In a special episode we learnt that after witnessing a horrific death, she was racially abused and physically attacked by a drunken woman.
Things went from bad to worse when the woman, Naomi (Melissa Batchelor), was spotted at an event at the Chariot Square Hotel.
Naomi denied any wrongdoing, and Asha spiralled further.
Step-mum Bernie Winter (Jane Hazlegrove) then offered her own way of helping – something which lead to Naomi threatening to sue Bernie. Feeling that she had nowhere left to turn, Asha dropped the police report.
Now skipping work and drinking heavily, dad Dev realises that something is seriously wrong with his daughter next week when her work colleague Sienna (Charlotte Tyree) notes that Asha still hasn’t returned to her duties.
She’s embarrassed to be caught out by her dad, and hits the bottle.
Amy Barlow (Elle Mulvaney) spots her mate in a bad way, and immediately alerts Dev.
‘He gets a call from Amy, and suddenly his whole world turns upside down, and that’s when he starts going into denial mode,’ Jimmi told us.
He finds a paramedic by her side and is stunned when they ask whether she’s taken drugs with the wine she’s been consuming.
The family are alarmed when a drugs test comes back positive, and Bernie wonders whether Asha deliberately tried to take her life – a thought that Dev is unwilling to process.
Jimmi explains: ‘Dev goes and takes out all his frustrations, his anger, his self-doubt and recriminations with Bernie.
‘But when he goes back to the hospital, he’s very, very gentle with his daughter, caring and apologetic, and then he walks out there, and then he’s angry and he’s crying, and then he goes back to the hospital, and his daughter never sees any of that.
‘There’s a massive mask that just keeps slipping as soon as he leaves her.’
He was also keen to share his love for Tanisha, who he has worked alongside for the last 16 years.
‘She’s incredible, really,’ he added.
‘Instinctively, what she’s done is just wonderful, and I always feel really safe with her. I think she’s amazing.
‘I don’t know how she’s learnt it, maybe by osmosis or by just being on Coronation Street for as long as she has done, just soaking up all the influences.
‘But she’s very, very, very, capable. She’s very confident. And she just feels like my daughter, it doesn’t feel like it’s an actress playing my daughter.
‘She just feels a part of the family.’