Cot death drama tough for Martin Kemp

Martin Kemp has admitted that he struggled during filming for his latest TV project.

The former EastEnders actor stars in ITV's Love Lies Bleeding as a businessman who loses his baby son to cot death.

"We had this struggle with the idea of losing a child to cot death, and the stress that went along with that," he explained. "I think carrying the stress of that through the shoot took its toll for me in the end.

"You can't kid your body into being that stressed for that amount of time without suffering the effects that you would get if you were actually that stressed. So as soon as we stopped filming I felt run down and got flu.

"I've got children of my own and I remember quite clearly carrying that worry of cot death when they were babies. And thank God it didn't come to us. But it did ring a bell when we were playing those scenes."