Martin Compston appears on Zoom proudly wearing his green and white Celtic top – combined with his thick Scottish accent used in Our House, his home isn’t up for debate. He’s in Las Vegas though when we virtually meet to chat about his new ITV thriller.
“I’m heading back home next week which I’m looking forward to – it’s the longest I’ve actually spent out here. I do really like it,” he explains.
We’re really here to dig into Compston’s new drama, Our House, based off a book by Louise Candlish of the same name. He plays Bram, who is seemingly a lovely husband to wife Fi (Tuppence Middleton) at first, but a series of bad choices bring about his own self-destruction and the collapse of his marriage.
The action is centred around a beautiful London abode, where the couple (once separated) trial a new way of co-existing, called “bird nesting”. Their two kids remain in their marital home, while Bram and Fi fly between a pretty dingy flat. Constantly apart, but keeping the kids as grounded as possible.
“The house is amazing,” Compston recalls, before explaining most of the show is actually (and seamlessly) filmed in a studio. “It was nice when we got [to the house shoot] because the hallway, the doorway, becomes a huge part of the show because of the bird nesting they’re constantly crossing each other over.”
The reason for bird nesting? Bram is a character so flawed he can’t help but make terrible life-altering mistakes.
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“On the page, he’s an absolute bastard,” admits Compston. “The producers have all been very kind because they said that’s one of the reasons they came to me because you have to make him likeable. As an actor, as I play the scenes I also have to remember some of the stuff he’s done. You have to keep that at the forefront because otherwise, he becomes a psychopath, that he’s sort of this nice guy regardless of what he’s done.
“You have to really grab on to the moments where he is a good guy – there are few and far between. He’s like, ‘when everything’s going well, it just feels all that mundane’ – and he needs to inject the chaos into it, he needs a bit of excitement.”
Compston concludes: “I don’t think he’s inherently a bad guy at all, he’s made a couple of really stupid mistakes which probably in terms of a marriage are unforgivable, but once that sort of spirals, he’s just way out of his depth.”
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What makes Our House so much more complex than your usual weeknight ITV drama is the constant diving between two timelines while intertwining both the husband and wife’s perspective – it’s a drama that makes you earn its reveals.
“You need to pay attention, you have to follow it – I don’t think it’s something where people can be sitting on their phones and social media while they’re watching it,” Compston says.
“Jumping those timelines is difficult, but I also thought what the edit did was really clever and really brave by not putting timestamps on it. I think that makes it in some ways a lot smoother because you’re not just jumping, it just sort of naturally happens.”
Throughout our chat, it becomes evident that Compston is a lover and expert of the craft. He knows when a narrative will work and when it won’t – and he knows when not to push a show too far. Our House, he insists, will only be a limited series.
“I think these days, people are far too afraid to just let something be – I think you can run the risk of spoiling a great original with a bad sequel, and I’ve seen that happen several times.”
He continues: “I think there is something psychological in your head when you go, ‘this is it, this is the one-off drama’, and you commit to it fully, and we’re not coming back.
“I think there’s something really appealing in that as an actor, you know, where we just knew this is a one-off, and we’re all in and then it’s done. There’s something really exciting about that as well because you’re not going to get a second chance to address everything that goes wrong in the first, so you’re really committed.”
With this the second one-off drama Compston’s done of late, one can’t help but think of the role that’s made him a household name, a role he’s played for 10 years (to date), and one that people will quite often refer to him as – Steve Arnott.
Line of Duty undoubtedly made popular figures of all the AC-12 leads, and created an aura around writer Jed Mercurio, who seems to have the Midas touch with any drama he’s involved in these days.
Following the dramatic (but also heavily criticised) reveal of H in the season 6 finale, I couldn’t help but ask the question on the nation’s lips: will it return?
“I really, really appreciate how much people love it,” Compston says, before his well-rehearsed answer. “Where we’re at right now is no different to where we’ve ever been. We’ve always taken a big gap off between seasons, so I really couldn’t tell you.”
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He continued: “When Jed sees a story, we’d all be game. I think we’d all be absolutely heartbroken if we thought that was the last time we all work together, so there’s an appetite there.
“But in terms of where we’re at, there’s nothing different to where we usually are – it usually takes a year or so, and then Jed [Mercurio] will call and say, ‘Look, guys, here’s the story I’ve got’, and then we go to it. But I couldn’t tell you if that call was going to come.”
“But you know, we’ll figure it out,” he teases, with a smile on his face. With such a national phenomenon like Line of Duty, you can’t help but feel assured they certainly will.
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