I’ve been watching Vigil, on BBC iPlayer. It’s about a detective investigating a death on a British nuclear submarine.
It’s pretty good so far (four episodes in) but it’s significant to me for a few reasons.
Firstly, it’s filmed in Scotland and most of the cast are Scottish. This may not seem that remarkable but it doesn’t happen very often. It’s great to hear so many actors actually speaking in their normal voice. Rose Leslie (off of GoT) plays one of the detectives and she is not Scottish, but her accent is pretty great. She slips a little on elongated vowel sounds but otherwise is faultless.
A large part of the show is filmed in the old City of Glasgow College building, which is where I went to college as a mature student a few years ago. This is the “People Make Glasgow” building that is a very prominent part of the Glasgow skyline. Almost every office shot in the show is just a different view from this building. Having spent so much time in this place it’s fun to see it on TV.
The other main thing is that this references the Antares fishing disaster, which is something very close to my family. The show starts with a submarine sinking a fishing vessel by snagging its nets. My father was a trawlerman working in the firth of Clyde and I grew up in a small fishing village in Kintyre.
In 1990 a royal navy submarine snagged the nets of the fishing vessel Antares dragging it beneath the surface with the loss of all hands. The captain of this boat was my best friend’s dad. The navy tried to cover up their involvement but a public inquiry led to significant changes to how submarines operate in the Clyde.
It was difficult to watch the scenes with the fishing boat being dragged under but I’m glad that the disaster and the navy’s involvement is being broadcast on such a public stage.
It’s a pretty good mystery as well!