Following a dream to stage and TV

But it is actually eight years since she left the hit series to return to the stage.

“I loved playing Comfort,” explains the actress who is busy rehearsing in Leeds for her latest play, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl.

“I played her for five years and although she started off being a bit like me, she grew in confidence and became a lot more confident and assertive than I am.”

In fact, Martina says, she was a shy child growing up in Trinidad as her brother and sisters were much older than her.

“Although I’m from a big, happy family, my brother is 21 years older than me. So because he and my sisters had left home by the time I was seven, I was really like an only child,” she explains,

“My parents sent me to drama classes because I was a bit shy. I even wrote my first play at the age of ten.”

But a young Martina always had a dream to leave her homeland.

“I felt the only way that I was really going to get on in life was to leave Trinidad,”
So when she was just 17 she won a scholarship to the University of Kent to study French.

In Trinidad it was impossible to make a full-time career out of being an actor and Martina knew that her parents expected her to get a “proper” job. But her first love was acting.

“I did drama as part of my degree. I absolutely loved acting but because I’d done well at school, I wanted to be the good daughter.

“It was expected of me to have a high-powered career.

“But I loved the idea that in this country you could actually spend your life 
doing something you 
loved.”

So she eventually plucked up the courage to break the news to her parents that she wanted to become an actress.

They were supportive of their daughter’s decision, although Martina is the first to admit that her chosen profession hasn’t always been an easy ride.

However, after a successful start to her career on the stage, including a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company, she turned to television, landing the role in Casualty.

“I absolutely loved my time in Casualty. Comfort was such a great character to play and the cast are all so wonderful and supportive.”

But after five years on the show she admits to getting itchy feet.

“I was still loving what I was doing, although it was very physically demanding playing a paramedic.

“But I would go to the theatre and see my friends in wonderful plays and wish I was doing that. I missed the theatre.”

And so she took the difficult decision to leave the safety of a long-running TV show, although she hasn’t ruled out Comfort’s return.

“The character is still open, so who knows,” she says. But for now her time is taken up with Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John. The play is set in Trinidad in the late 1940s and centres on a character who has decided to leave his homeland.

The irony is not missed on Martina.

“The play is very powerful and it does deal with some issues which are very personal to me. The people in the yard where the play is set don’t want him to leave, they need him for Trinidad. Of course that does resonate with me, but I don’t regret my decision. I go back to Trinidad regularly to see my parents, but I want to be a success in Britain.”

Twitter @ypcscott