‘We bring abitof ourselves onto screen’
◆ As psychological thriller series Coma lands on Channel 5, stars Jason Watkins, Claire Skinner and Jonas Armstrong talk to Charlotte Mclaughlin about what to expect
What happens when one split-second decision spirals to disrupt your whole life? That is the subject of new Channel 5 drama Coma, which stars Being Human’s Jason Watkins as Simon, an under-pressure businessman whose middle-class suburban life is on the brink in the midst of the cost-of-living crisis.
He faces redundancy from his job, pressures on his mortgage and livelihood and, crucially, his family’s safety.
His otherwise quiet street is being terrorised by youths, making him, his neighbours and their families feel under threat in their own homes from physical violence, destruction of property and antisocial behaviour.
Things come to a head for Simon when he confronts local youth Jordan about his behaviour and that of his friends, sparking an argument which culminates in a one-punch assault – an attack that proves to be life-threatening.
“Middle-class people, characters are starting to suffer from the series’ outset,” notes Watkins.
“They were desperate to have some financial security. Simon, my character, is getting older, and getting towards the end of his time at his work … we join the couple under a lot of pressure, vulnerable pressure,” says the 61-yearold actor, who had a scene-stealing role in the fourth series of Line Of Duty and won a TV Bafta for his starring turn in The Lost Honour Of Christopher Jefferies.
“Although it seems to be OK – like a lot of these suburban lives, (they have) the nice house, nice jobs and everything’s fine – but of course, you scratch the surface and things are more complex.
“They’ve had difficulty with conceiving, they’re slightly vulnerable in terms of money, and so we’re on a slight knife edge.”
Simon’s punch during his argument with Jordan sends the boy reeling. He falls back, banging his head on the kerb, and is left lying motionless in the street. The middle-aged father, whose wife and young daughter are in the house behind him, begins to panic when he realises Jordan is not breathing.
Simon performs CPR on the 17-yearold, who is played by new actor Joe Barber, and is praised for his heroics when the police arrive to find him desperately trying to keep the lad alive.
They presume he is an innocent bystander – he is a middle-class
businessman with no criminal history, and Jordan’s a known local gang member – and Simon plays along.
But when detectives start sniffing around the case, including DS Kelly Evans (Kayla Meikle), who has nagging doubts about the family man’s story of finding a teenager unconscious in his street, Simon begins to spin a deeper, darker web of lies.
Things get much worse for Simon when it transpires that someone else was watching that fateful night, someone who might just tell the truth about the assault.
The psychological thriller is one with depth, tapping into a growing frustration with police response to small-level crimes.
Actress Claire Skinner, best known for playing mother Sue Brockman in hit BBC comedy Outnumbered, stars as Simon’s supportive wife Beth, a nurse.
“The premise of it is that these two people who have both got jobs, and both got fairly decent jobs, are desperate to get out of the area that they live in, because they want to be somewhere safer for bringing up their children,” says the 59-year-old.
She added that there are parallels with “people working two jobs at a time and still having to use food banks” in the UK.
“I think it is a really good starting point for the drama,” she says, “and where they start making some of the kinds of decisions that they make.”
Watkins and Skinner previously collaborated on crime drama series Mcdonald & Dodds, which Watkins says meant they could get “quite close” and really delve into their roles in Coma.
“As we go into the latter episodes there are scenes that are really desperate, and it’s not comedy, it’s not (detective series) Mcdonald & Dodds, it’s something very different,” says Watkins.
“Claire and myself were able to mine any comic elements to it but also, we’re both of an age, I’m a bit older, where you are a bit in sniper’s alley.
“You’ve got children and you’ve got parents that are ageing. You’ve got pressures from either side. Both Claire and I have that in our lives. So we are bringing a bit of ourselves onto screen.
“It was just great to work with her. We’ve now done three jobs together in a row.”
Towards the end of the tense first episode, Simon goes to check on Jordan in hospital, where he is met by the teenager’s parents, including his local criminal father Paul, played by Robin Hood and Floodlights star Jonas Armstrong, who wants answers.
Armstrong says Paul is a “psychopathic, volatile and violent” man, but he is also “clever”, an interesting character to explore.
“He’s not just a two-dimensional sort of gangster. He’s got the brains, he’s got the wit. He’s very astute, very calculated. He will wear people down with his questioning,” says the 43-year-old.
“Jonas (Armstrong) is terrifying (as Paul),” agrees Watkins.
“But he has a son who’s in hospital, and he is so convincing that you want to know what’s going on with him … they’ve all got great interior lives.
“He is so terrifying that it does open a comic door, because Simon is completely out of his depth,” he adds. “I think that’s one of the things I really like about the piece. I wanted to bring the audience with me – What would they be thinking? How would you deal with somebody like that?”
It seems to be OK but you scratch the surface and things are more complex
Coma, today to Thursday, Channel 5, 9pm