Martin Compston's Evolution, From Line of Duty to Traces to The Nest - CBR - Comic Book Resources
Summary
- Martin Compston's roles in Line of Duty, Traces, and The Nest form their own story arc, showcasing his talent and distinct signature.
- In Line of Duty, Compston's character Steve Arnott evolves from an individual cop to a heroic figure who holds his colleagues accountable.
- Traces and The Nest feature Compston in more ambiguous parts, highlighting his ability to portray vulnerability and explore complex characters.
The best actors are those who make an impact with every performance. It doesn't matter what role Martin Compston is playing or how large the screen time; audiences know when they see him that he's going to leave his mark on the project. Through his breakout work in Line of Duty and the opportunities that have come his way since, viewers have also gotten a specific understanding of why he's so talented. It's not simply pure ability; there are certain choices that set him apart.
One of those is the sequence of British television roles he's taken on in recent years -- because three of them happen to fall within the same space. Line of Duty, Traces and The Nest are all very different series, and within them Compston portrays three distinct characters. Yet all of those characters touch on different aspects of the crime genre, and they do so in a practically sequential order that creates its own story arc. Watching the trio of shows together makes them each more memorable and reveals the distinct signature that Martin Compston brings to all of them.
Line of Duty Makes Martin Compston Into a Hero
Every British television viewer is familiar with Line of Duty since it's one of the BBC's best dramas. Within that, much can be said about Compston's character Steve Arnott, since creator Jed Mercurio has a knack for crafting jaw-droppingly complex heroes and villains. But the key point is that Steve is the engine that originally makes Line of Duty go; it's his case that thrusts viewers into the world of AC-12 and his becoming a member of that team that starts the story proper. While subsequent series -- including the surprising Line of Duty Series 6 -- make clear that this is an ensemble show, one of the subplots in Series 1 is Steve's personal growth from an individual officer to part of a team, and his coming into his potential as a genuinely heroic character.
As a police officer, Steve is automatically in a heroic position... but as the series overall demonstrates quickly, being the "good guy" isn't an assigned role. Steve establishes himself as a true hero because he speaks up and takes responsibility -- the impact of which comes double since he stands up against his own colleagues. The police are supposed to set the standard, so that willingness to hold them to account puts Steve on a separate moral level. He soon discovers that it's not an easy level to navigate, and he makes a number of mistakes as he adapts to the professional responsibilities that come with the moral ones. The beauty of Compston's performance is his ability to show that humanity and the growth process that comes with the person Steve wants to be. As Line of Duty goes on, audiences watch him struggle between who he is and what he aspires to, and Compston carries that aspiration throughout. He plays Steve with an openness that lets the viewer understand that getting to your best sometimes means being seen at your worst, and that there's always a chance to get up again.
Yet Steve being in law enforcement -- and someone who regulates other cops at that -- puts him at the firm end of the criminal justice system. He's an obviously good character and one who has a very defined purpose to keep upholding the highest possible standard. That clear definition is what makes Compston's roles in Traces and The Nest so interesting, because those are characters Steve could easily have run across, and he'd probably have conflicting thoughts on them.
Traces Catches Compston's Character Between Two Extremes
It makes sense that Martin Compston's roles outside Line of Duty are on the opposite side of Steve Arnott; any actor on a long-running series would want their outside projects to be different. But as Daniel MacAfee in Traces -- airing just seven months after Line of Duty Series 5 -- he strikes an interesting middle ground. Daniel is being held criminally responsible for a nightclub fire in which people were killed, yet he's also someone whom Steve might sympathize with. Despite his legal liability, Daniel is an understandable character who spends his entire story arc pulled between two other people and their opposing goals. In a way, he's walking collateral damage.
The plot of Traces surrounds both the nightclub fire and the unsolved murder of Emma Hedges' mother. Daniel is introduced in the second episode as the director of the construction company connected to the nightclub and very quickly becomes Emma's love interest. As the story goes on, it's revealed that Daniel's father Phil (played by One Piece star Vincent Regan) is not only willing to let his son take the fall for MacAfee Construction but also has a hand in the murder. Daniel is ultimately the linchpin in getting his father arrested, before Traces' flawed narrative abruptly writes both him and Emma out early in the second series. There are lots of issues with the plot, but the arc Compston plays is not one of them. Daniel is square between Emma and his father -- both strongly self-focused characters -- while he must finally make a decision as to who he is.
In Traces, Compston goes from crime-buster to someone actually indicted for a crime, though there's never any doubt as to Daniel being a good person. The character lives in a grey area because so many of his actions are influenced by those closest to him, but he also bears some responsibility, whether it be legally or ethically. Daniel doesn't have Steve's moral code or his confidence, but they share a common want to do good, and Daniel also speaks up against someone he trusted. Therein lies the Martin Compston spark that's in every role: he gets right to the vulnerability of a character far better than anyone else. Some of the most powerful scenes in Traces are showing the toll Daniel's choices take on him and how they make him doubt himself. To go from officer to suspect is an intriguing enough transition, but Compston then takes it one step further with The Nest, which arrives just four months later.
The Nest Gives Martin Compston a Redemption Story
Dan Docherty from The Nest is the kind of person Steve Arnott would distrust. Dan is a successful property developer who has everything with his beloved wife Emily, except for a child. When a mysterious teenager enters their lives and offers to serve as their surrogate, The Nest shows the risks that Dan and Emily take to get the one thing they're desperate for. But one of the threads that unravels is Dan's criminal past: it comes out that his success was built on laundering money for drug dealers. While his time spent in the criminal underworld gives him the instincts to question Kaya (portrayed by The Witcher alum Mirren Mack) and the tenacity to fight back when the situation gets tough, it also means he was a "bad guy" at one point, and he's "convicted" in the public eye at series' end, when his past becomes an issue in the custody battle and costs him his empire.
Dan is not a heroic character, but neither would he want to be a hero. The episodes of The Nest that expose his history also make clear that he's moved well on from his "bad" days and had plenty of legitimate success. Unlike Daniel, Dan willingly crossed the line and he's also willing to be morally grey when he feels it's necessary for the protection of his family. Steve wouldn't see that as justification. But those distinctions allow Compston to keep following his thread through the justice system by playing someone who actually broke the law and didn't get his true punishment until much later. It also enables Compston to play with the idea of what it means to be the protagonist. Dan is flawed by choice, not by chance as Daniel is in Traces or because of his aspirations like Steve in Line of Duty. However, Dan does a lot of good within The Nest, being the only person to seriously challenge Kaya before everything falls apart. His comeuppance also acts as a form of redemption, because he is humbled by the difficulty he goes through and welcomes the change. Dan Docherty and Steve Arnott are in completely opposite places, yet because Compston puts their humanity at the forefront, they'd understand each other -- even if they wouldn't agree.
Across three roles nearly in a row, Martin Compston transitions from serving justice to being stuck in the justice system to escaping justice -- albeit temporarily. He tells an overarching story of what it's like to move through that system, shifting from searching for justice to facing it, and shows how justice can be meted out in different ways, whether it's criminal sentencing or personal reckoning. This sliver of his filmography fits together perfectly -- and it does so primarily because of Compston's acting choices. Steve, Daniel and Dan are all in different places on the crime drama spectrum, but because Compston plays them, they share a common thread of introspection. All of them face their external consequences by looking within themselves, because Compston gives them incredible emotional depth and is willing to pull that emotion out. His ability to do so transcends the plots of each individual series. He exposes each character so completely that the audience sees beyond their individual stations, and instead recognizes that they're all shaped by their experiences with criminal justice. Across these performances and others, Martin Compston has given the truest portrayal of what the genre actually means.
Line of Duty and Traces are streaming on BritBox, while The Nest is streaming on Acorn TV.
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