With just days to go before Line of Duty’s feverishly anticipated season finale airs, its rising star
THERE can be few conversations that have taken place in the capital this week that haven’t touched on Line of Duty: we are a city obsessed. The BBC drama about police anti-corruption unit AC-12 is currently reaching new heights and — having been promoted from BBC2 to a prime-time Sunday evening BBC1 slot — new ratings.
Now, in its fourth series, and starring Vicky McClure and Thandie Newton, Line of Duty is the kind of show we’re not supposed to see any more in this Peak TV era of post-streaming, ondemand binge-consumption. It’s proper water-cooler television, week in and week out uniting the nation the morning after the show the night before.
“It’s communal viewing,” agrees Martin Compston, who plays DS Steve Arnott, recently seen fighting for his life after a brutal beating. “There’s something to be said for that. We’re all guilty of binge-watching — well, maybe guilty is the wrong word. My missus goes through a series in a week. But if I’m watching a show I need to watch it one episode at a time. You need to let it digest before you go on to another one.
“And there is something about having everyone on tenterhooks all week. Obviously, I knew I didn’t die but everybody was assuming Steve was dead. Even my Mum said: ‘Oh no, son, are you dead?’ I’m like: ‘ Mum! You know I was filming till Christmas!’ But, yeah,” he grins, “it was especially fun over the last couple of episodes.”
As the show races towards this weekend’s finale, the capital is in the grip of Line of Duty fever, as Compston can attest. The Scottish actor lives in LA but he’s made a last-minute trip to London, keen to tap in to the end-of-series hype.
“It’s been mad walking about the last couple of days,” the 32-year-old says over a Diet Coke in his County Hall hotel. “Even getting on the plane at LAX the other day all these people waiting to board were saying: ‘He’s alive, he’s alive!’” He shakes his head. “I’m thinking: ‘This is crazy…’ I was away last year, when series three was on. So as much as it was nice to get people’s messages on social media, I did miss all the excitement.”
He remembers the incredulous reports from co-stars McClure (DS Kate Fleming) and Adrian Dunbar (Superintendent Ted Hastings), telling him “the place is going mad!”.
Much of the appeal of Line of Duty lies in the writing of creator Jed Mercurio. Whereas the recently wrapped Broadchurch, for all its brilliance, blithely tossed up more red herrings than a Soviet fishing fleet, Line of Duty is smarter, darker, twistier. Mercurio is meticulous in his research, and constructs his scripts with layers of intrigue, pitting detective against detective, turning heroes into villains then back again and, frequently, Alisters into martyrs.
Indeed, Line of Duty isn’t afraid to kill off its big-names, and do so abruptly: Danny Mays was shot dead in episode one of season three (winning a nomination for next month’s Baftas in the process), while Jason Watkins came a copper-cropper at the start of this season.
Even if they survive for an unexpected return, their future isn’t assured. Keeley Hawes, virtually unrecognisable playing a season two baddie (another Bafta-nominated role), came back last year, only to be shot in the head at point-blank range.
It’s Mercurio’s abilit y to craft a complex, far-from-obvious narrative that helped win the show first a cult following, and now a mass one. “I remember on series one,” continues Compston, “I was walking down the street in London and this lassie grabbed me and started looking at my hands. She’s going: ‘ Are you alright, are you alright?’ My pal [Game of Thrones actor] Joe Dempsie was with me and he’s going to her: ‘Hey, calm down…’ But I said: ‘No, it’s all right…’ — this was after my hands had been shoved in a vice in the show. It was just bizarre — people get really invested in it. Which is nice, but there are weird moments like that.
“People think they know you — you’re in their house every week. So they will come up and grab you. But I just feel very lucky, although if you weren’t so inclined, or you weren’t from Greenock, that kind of thing could be a bit intimidating.”
Arnott’s signature look of oddly spivvy three-piece suits is inspired by Compston’s proudly working-class background.
“Before we started the first series a pal of mine who works in a call centre was telling me about someone who worked with him. This guy was a right wee dick and he wore waistcoats to work — who would wear waistcoats to work in a call centre?” he laughs. But it turned out that Waistcoat Man was having some success with his female co-workers, “which nobody could understand because nobody liked him.
‘People think they know you because you’re in their house every week. They will grab you’