{"id":18469,"date":"2023-04-04T08:50:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T12:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2023-04-05T16:25:19","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T20:25:19","slug":"adrian-dunbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/adrian-dunbar\/","title":{"rendered":"Adrian Dunbar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the 1980s, Northern Irish actor, producer and director Adrian Dunbar has worked in film, theater and television. Early in his career, he starred in the feature films My Left Foot<\/em> and The Crying Game<\/em>, followed by dozens of roles in stage productions and TV series. Most recently, he played a cop called in from retirement in Ridley<\/em>, for which he is also an associate producer. While portraying detectives is familiar to him, Ridley is different and complex, as Dunbar explains, not only for his penchant for jazz. Dunbar talks about stepping into the role, the quality on display in today\u2019s TV series and the ongoing popularity of detective shows.<\/p>\n

\"***Image***\"TV DRAMA: <\/strong>What appealed to you about the project? It\u2019s different from other things you\u2019ve done, right?
\nDUNBAR: <\/strong>Yes, it certainly is. What appealed to me, first of all, was that I got some excellent scripts from Paul Matthew Thompson, whom I had known for years. I knew Paul was a really good writer, especially in this genre. And I was working with Jonathan Fisher again, who had been the producer on a series called Blood<\/em> that I did for All3Media. Ridley<\/em> was coming from a good place already. Then I started reading the scripts and thought the first episode was really good. I thought the denouement was great. The dynamic between the central characters was interesting. It\u2019s not the normal [setup]. Here is a guy who\u2019s retired and brought back in; therefore, he\u2019s not operating under the same rules as everybody else. He\u2019s a bit more off the wall. But he\u2019s dealing with a lot of very serious stuff that happened in the past. He lost his wife and daughter in a horrible house fire. That is the theme that\u2019s running through all four episodes. And it brilliantly comes together in episode four, where they tie everything up. Ridley<\/em> was four 90-minute episodes\u2014quite a lot. So, yes, it\u2019s a big piece.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA: <\/strong>How did you step into the role, especially since you had previously played a cop, Superintendent Ted Hastings, in Line of Duty<\/em>?
\nDUNBAR: <\/strong>I look at it sometimes from the outside in rather than the inside out. The inside-out stuff looks after itself because you\u2019re saying to yourself, this is his past history. How will that affect his attitude, mood and feelings about the world? And how will he get dragged back into a world that the tragedy came out of? But from the outside in, it\u2019s amazing what happens when you step out of uniform. I knew from just doing a few scenes in Line of Duty<\/em> where I wasn\u2019t in my cop uniform how transformative that was. I was confident that once I\u2019d get into civvies, once I didn\u2019t have to have a cop haircut, and I didn\u2019t have to lean hard in my Northern Irish accent, as I did in Line of Duty<\/em>, things would completely change quite rapidly. And that seems to be what has happened. The character is very distinctive, and he\u2019s [outdoors]. My character in Line of Duty<\/em> was an interior character. He was very rarely outside. I\u2019m always on the hoof during this show, which is great. I thought all those elements would allow an audience to let me reinvent myself.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA: <\/strong>And you didn\u2019t need to say, \u201ccatching bent coppers,\u201d did you?
\nDUNBAR: <\/strong>No. [Laughs<\/em>] He doesn\u2019t do any of that stuff. He\u2019s not a catchphrase guy, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA: <\/strong>Ridley co-owns a jazz bar. You have musical skills. Did you bring those skills and your passion for music to the show?
\nDUNBAR: <\/strong>Absolutely. I started reading the scripts and having conversations initially, and I said, We will be filming this in Manchester in the north of England in the winter. It\u2019s pretty bleak. So why don\u2019t we invent a place and give him something to do? My idea was that his retirement would be running this jazz club. He\u2019s a jazz head. So he would be running this jazz club with an old friend called Annie, played by Julie Graham. I do a bit of singing myself. Maybe he gets up and sings the old song. Then I said, I\u2019d also like somewhere warm because everything else is so cold and bleak. Somewhere we can go where it\u2019s a bit more colorful, there\u2019s a bit more warmth and a bit of music. Then I started thinking, well, we\u2019ll need a jazz band. Let me see if there are any people up north. I came across this incredible artist, Richard Hawley. I started listening to Richard\u2019s work. A lot of it is located in that beautiful area of male grief. It\u2019s got that thing about it. He has some amazing songs. At the end of each episode, we do one of Richard\u2019s songs and cut in and out of the story. The songs are not specifically to do with the storyline, but emotionally they\u2019re in the right area. It was a bit of a gamble. Suddenly, at the end of a cop show, the band kicks in, and we sing a song, and you see the denouement play out, but it\u2019s working. People have warmed to it. It hasn\u2019t been an issue. It\u2019s like, oh, that\u2019s what this show is like. That\u2019s been a real triumph for me, in particular, to suggest it. And the guys were brave enough to run with it.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA: <\/strong>To what do you attribute the ongoing popularity of crime series and detectives?
\nDUNBAR: <\/strong>First and foremost, that\u2019s the access point for all the big stories. Where do you go to find the real human interest? Where do all the moral dilemmas exist? Well, the first person to access them is usually the detective. He\u2019s usually the one putting it all together and going, This happened, and that happened; these are the elements, and this is the person. What\u2019s the motive? We\u2019ve been clever in TV; we get vets or doctors and try to find other means of access. But ultimately, it\u2019s the detective. And, it all started, way back, with Eliot Ness and Damon Runyon and all these guys who were initially given access. Journalists, especially in America, have been given access to the crime scene much quicker than [in the U.K.]. Of course, we also had Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes types, scientifically working things out.
\nI think we\u2019re interested because we are interested in moral dilemmas. We all have moral dilemmas in our lives and wonder how we would respond to the situation [depicted in the TV show]. That\u2019s what makes shows like Happy Valley<\/em>, Vera<\/em> and others in this genre good: the moral dilemma. What\u2019s changed about them is that the leads have become female, and the dilemmas have become more specific. And you can explore [issues] or attitudes that are current. That\u2019s what\u2019s feeding into the storylines, which I think is really good.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA: <\/strong>You have worked in film, theater and television. What are the different creative challenges of each, and do you have a favorite?
\nDUNBAR: <\/strong>I don\u2019t have a favorite. The challenges are different. TV is where it\u2019s at, at the moment. People used to call it the \u201cmedium\u201d of television because it was never rare or well done. But it\u2019s changed since then. When I came to TV in the 1980s, it was pretty slow. It was like walking through molasses sometimes\u2014the dialogue, the mise-en-sc\u00e8ne, everything. Now, because you\u2019re watching on big screens and you\u2019ve got catch-up, the production values have gone through the roof. The quality is so much [greater]. Many major stars have crossed into TV, giving it a new standard. When we look back in 50 years at what television was doing, people may not be looking entirely at what was happening in the movies. I find a lot of the movies pretty light. I don\u2019t think the same rigor is being applied to filmmaking as is being applied to television. You\u2019d think it would be the opposite. But films are pretty light\u2014Triangle of Sadness<\/em> and The Banshees of Inisherin<\/em> and so forth. They\u2019re not throwing you about like television can. Now and again, some wonderful films come out, and I like independent films. I\u2019d like to be doing a bit more with independent cinema. But at the moment, TV is where it\u2019s at.
\nThe theater is always going to be close to my heart. But theater is so expensive, and only a certain number of people can see it these days. It\u2019s hard to know where you will go in the theater to make a difference to people. It\u2019s great to see revivals like To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em> and be reminded of the classics.
\nBut the disciplines for an actor are completely different. You\u2019re using your whole body in the theater, and that\u2019s an entirely different language. TV, you\u2019re bang up front. TV and film are much closer. At the moment, I think TV has the edge on everybody.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA: <\/strong>How have you seen Northern Ireland\u2019s television storytelling evolve in the past two decades\u2014since the end of the Troubles?
\nDUNBAR: <\/strong>There has been an evolution in the amount of work being done there, the quality of the work and the upskilling of the technicians and facilities we have. And the actors who have come out of there, of course. The BBC and [other] companies were trying to do things in Northern Ireland whereby they were explaining what was going on there to the rest of the world. Most of the storylines were based around somebody from the outside who came in and was trying to understand why everybody was killing one another. You can\u2019t do that without being patronizing. We were being patronized for a long time in terms of our storylines until the local people started [taking] over for themselves. And then that\u2019s difficult because sometimes they don\u2019t want to allow local attitudes onto the screen as local attitudes can be polarizing. So, it was difficult, but there are many more interesting things politically coming out of there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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