VIGIL’S Martin Compston has broken his silence on the infamous death scene that left fans open-mouthed.
The actor stars as Craig Burke in the new BBC drama which kicked off last night.
But viewers were shocked to see his character killed off while onboard HMS Vigil, from a reported heroine overdose in the opening scenes.
The action continued with DCI Amy Silva – played by Suranne Jones – sent in to investigate his death.
The Line of Duty favourite admitted he knew from the offset that he character was not going to get much airtime.
Martin, 37, explained: “We were about to start shooting Line of Duty series six, and I was having dinner with Simon Heath, who’s the executive producer on that and Vigil.
“Out of the blue he mentioned that World Productions and the BBC had this wonderful ‘red herring part’ coming up on a new series that everyone was really excited about, Vigil, and he said to me “Do you want to do it?”
And the actor has gone out of his way to make sure the demise of his character was kept a secret.
He exclaimed: “I’ve not told a single soul. You just can’t give these things away – nobody wants a spoiler, and I wouldn’t want to kill the surprise for anybody.
“Even my family and people close to me who knew I wasn’t away filming Vigil for very long, I just told them I had a ‘limited’ role.”
Martin admitted: “I found it intriguing to be the surprise death for once. I was chuffed to be asked.
“What I found especially intriguing was that Burke dies and – just when you think you’ve seen the last of him – it turns out that, no, he’s still got more to give and more to say and he’s made it so he hasn’t gone down without a fight.”
And as for how the drama ends?
Well, Martin revealed he’ll be tuning in with fellow viewers to find out.
“It’s a total mystery, and actually I don’t want to know in advance,” he confessed.
“I’m really looking forward to tuning in to watch the rest of Vigil with everyone else.
” It’s great to have catch-up, but I do think that ‘event telly’ is still a thing, so I’m excited to watch it live each week and find out who or what killed Burke at the same time as everyone else does.”
Vigil continues Monday on BBC One at 9pm.
