Vigil season one spoilers below
Vigil, the BBC's tense police drama, is back after a two year hiatus, and so are Scottish detectives Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) and Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie). The colleagues and romantic partners are returning to get to the bottom of another military mystery, but this time they are venturing into the closed world of Britain's arms dealing. Their investigations take the officers to the made-up Middle East country of Wudyan.
"The British military has worked in this region for decades, providing training and operational support," said writer and creator Tom Edge.
"We are all familiar with past joint operations against ISIS, but these relationships go far deeper than that, and they often involve complex partnerships between the military and the private sector. In Vigil 2 we explore a world of moral and political compromises, ethical disagreements and clashing institutional priorities."
In anticipation of the new series, which is premiering on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on December 10, here is a who is who of the new cast. And, with only four returning characters (Amy, Kirsten, Poppy and Gary Lewis), there is a whole host of exciting new faces to get up to speed with.
Suranne Jones: DCI Amy Silva
Manchester born actor Suranne Jones – who is best known for starring in Doctor Foster and Gentleman Jack – returns to play Detective Chief Inspector Amy Silva. She takes medication for anxiety and depression, suffers from claustrophobia and is in a relationship with DI Kirsten Longacre. Silva became the step-mother to Poppy, the daughter of her long-term boyfriend who died.
"We left series one with Amy and Kirsten picking up Poppy after the trauma of the submarine and we saw that they decided to give their relationship a go," said Jones to the BBC. "In this series, Kirsten is pregnant, they are very happy together and very much in love and Poppy is now living with them. So we see Amy really happy and in a very secure place in her life."
"Tom Edge and the writers have done a brilliant job at putting a new world together for the second series. Rather than the navy, which we saw in the first series, we’re now in the world of the air force. It’s clever as we stay in the Vigil world and we have a blueprint of this police officer – my character – who has got form about investigating the military."
Rose Leslie: DI Kirsten Longacre
Rose Leslie, the Scottish actor best-known for playing Gwen Dawson in Downton Abbey, Ygritte in Game of Thrones and Clare in The Time Traveler's Wife, plays Detective Sergeant Kirsten Longacre. "I loved working in Scotland for series one so I loved coming back again," said Leslie to the BBC. "Spiritually, it’s my home and it’s been lovely to be closer to my parents and be back here."
Introducing the new series, Leslie said: "This series has a brand new, exciting set-up as Police Scotland are helping the military investigate a nasty situation where a deadly military drone has started murdering soldiers on the ground at an airbase during a training exercise. Police Scotland are pulled in to figure out how this happened and, if it’s not an accident, exactly who’s behind it."
Gary Lewis: DSU Colin Robertson
Gary Lewis is the only other returning member of the cast: "As with the last series, my character once again sends his intrepid staff into dangerous and extremely perilous conditions with international geopolitical implications," said Lewis to the BBC.
The 66-year-old Scottish actor, who has featured in TV shows including Taggart (1996), Silent Witness (2014), His Dark Materials (2019), plays DSU Colin Robertson, Amy and Kirsten's boss.
"Robertson basically came through the ranks of police service so he’s got a lot of experience and he’s a principled man and a man of integrity," explained Lewis. "His job is to be a good cop and that’s very important to him."
Romola Garai: Acting Squadron Leader Eliza Russell
Romola Garai, the British actor best-known for her roles in Vanity Fair (2004), As You Like It (2006), Amazing Grace (2007) and Atonement (2007), plays a squadron leader with a lot on her plate. Eliza Russell's immediate boss has had to return to Scotland, so she is suddenly tasked with looking after her group in the aftermath of the shocking accident.
"Eliza is quite a tricky character to pin down," said Garai. "She’s definitely quite sour to people that she feels have been promoted a bit too quickly and she’s trying to hold onto her power which can come across quite domineering, rude and abrasive at times."
"To an extent, she’s suspicious of Amy – as she’s an outsider coming in to investigate this crime – but at a certain point in the story we also see them turn to each other for help. They’re both very strong women in positions of powers and they clash at times, but I think there’s definitely a comradery between them as well."
David Elliot: Sutherland
42-year-old Scottish actor David Elliot has featured in a number of TV shows including Outlander (2013), Emmerdale (2013), Bulletproof (2018-2020), Liberator (2020) and Crime (2023).
He starred in the 2014 British war drama, Kajaki, for which he won best actor at the 2015 British Academy Scotland Awards. He'll be playing Sutherland, a mysterious new character who we currently know very little about.
Amir El-Masry: Daniel Ramsay
Egyptian-Britsh actor Amir El-Masry joins the cast as Daniel Ramsay, a cocky MI5 intelligence officer, who has been, as El-Masry puts it, "brought in by MI5 essentially as a co-investigator but also to annoy the hell out of Kirsten and Amy."
"Perhaps that’s a by-product of him being so self-assured and confident in what he does," said El-Masry. "He still has to earn his stripes to be included in that dynamic; and especially by Kirsten who takes a disliking to his initial involvement. But Ramsay takes it in his stride and actually enjoys having to be on the constant charm offensive with her."
El-Masry has featured in a number of high-profile films and TV shows, including The Night Manager (2016), Jack Ryan (2018), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Indusyrty (2020), The Crown (2022) and A Haunting in Venice (2023).
"What I love about Ramsay is that he puts his own work relationship politics aside for the greater good of the task ahead," he said. "And in doing so gets the respect of everyone around him because he starts to go above and beyond his job description and pay grade."
Chris Jenks: Callum Barker
Actor and producer Chris Jenks, who is best known for playing Steve Morley in Netflix's Sex Education, features as Eliza's air force colleague, Callum Barker. "Callum is troubled," explained Jenks to the BBC. "He’s suffering from taking part in what he thinks is a morally questionable military operation. He isn’t afraid to make his dissatisfaction known and rail against authority."
By all accounts, it looks like he is going to be giving his superior, Eliza, a hard time: "The dynamic between Eliza and Callum is tense. He sees her as being unnecessarily bureaucratic after the attack that opens the series, undeserving of her position and lacking emotional understanding," said Jenks. "Callum’s gone through the ringer himself and isn’t in the best position to be pals."
However, Barker's not all bad: "As the series progresses, we see that he is trying to keep a secret from the world and we get to see a softer, more intimate Callum," explains Jenks.
Dougray Scott: Air Marshall Marcus Grainger
Dougray Scott also joins the cast. The Scottish actor, who has featured in dozens of films and TV shows over the years, including Lovejoy (1992), Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), Enigma (2001), Ripley's Game (2002), Desperate Housewives (2006-2007), and The Woman in White (2018), will play the patriotic Air Vice Marshall, Marcus Grainger.
"He’s responsible for many of the arms sales to countries like Wudyan," said Scott to the BBC. "At the start of the series Grainger organises this ‘show and tell’ military display of the drone weapons to some of the authorities from Wudyan, and that’s where we’re first introduced to him. Things don’t go quite to plan, and we then see him try to navigate the issues that arise on that particular day."
"Grainger is a pragmatist and very geo-politically aware, so he sees the intricacies of selling arms to countries in precarious positions in the world."
