Adrian Dunbar

Dunbar was born and brought up in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in Northern Ireland, the eldest of seven siblings. He was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers before attending the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.[2]

Dunbar has appeared in such notable films as My Left Foot, The Crying Game, and The General. He has also had leading roles in the films Triggermen, Shooters, How Harry Became A Tree (with Colm Meaney), Richard III, and Widows' Peak.

On television, he starred in the first episode of Cracker, giving a performance as an innocent murder suspect with amnesia, and also the last episode of A Touch of Frost, and has been in many British productions, including Tough Love, Inspector Morse, Kidnapped, Murphy's Law, Murder in Mind, Ashes to Ashes and the 2005 re-staging of The Quatermass Experiment.

Dunbar's theatre credits include: The Shaughraun and Exiles at Dublin's Abbey Theatre; Real Dreams and The Danton Affair at the Royal Shakespeare Company; King Lear, Pope's Wedding, Saved and Up To The Sun And Down To The Centre at Royal Court Theatre, Conversations on a homecoming at the Lyric Theatre (Belfast); A Trinity of Two (as Oscar Wilde) at Dublin's Liberty Hall Theatre; Boeing Boeing (London, 2007). He directed a critically acclaimed production of Philadelphia Here I Come!.

In 2008 he starred in and co-directed Brendan at the Chelsea by Janet Behan, playing Brendan Behan. The play was the first to be staged in the Naughton Studio in the new Lyric Theatre (Belfast) after it reopened in 2011 and is being revived for a tour to Theatre Row in New York in September 2013.

He played the role of Aufidius in the BBC Radio production of Coriolanus. He also made a guest appearance in the BBC Radio 4 series Baldi, and appeared on stage as Vermeer in an adaptation of Girl with a Pearl Earring.

In 2008, Dunbar played the role of Philip Conolly in the critically acclaimed The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce. Dunbar starred alongside fellow Northern Irish actor Ciarán McMenamin in the remote rain-forests of north west Tasmania. He has also joined the cast of the British police procedural television series, Line of Duty in 2012, portraying the role of Superintendent Ted Hastings continuing on in this role for Series 2 (2014), Series 3 (2016), Series 4 (2017) and Series 5 (2019).

Dunbar is also a theatre director who staged productions for the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival.[3][4][5][6]

He played the mysterious character Martin Summers in the second series of Ashes to Ashes. In 2014 he played the title character in a BBC comedy drama Walter.[7]

Dunbar also starred as Jim Hogan on the Virgin Media Television original drama, Blood.

• He was cast as Bail Organa for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and appeared in costume in publicity stills, but his scene was cut, and the character was re-cast with Jimmy Smits for later films. Dunbar's likeness was retconned into the appearance of the character Bail Antilles.[8][9]
• He fronts his own band,[10] which has played in such American venues as Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas.
• He sings "The Curragh of Kildare" with Brian Kennedy on Kennedy's On Song, and fronts this song with his own band.[11]
• He narrates the popular TV series The Estate as well as an audiobook production of Eoin Colfer's novel Artemis Fowl.[12]
• He played a minor role in The Dawning (1988), alongside Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant, which led to further early roles in his acting career.

Dunbar has a daughter and stepson from his 1986 marriage to the Australian actress Anna Nygh. He lives in Crouch End, North London. Dunbar received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Ulster in June 2009 in recognition of his services to acting.[13]

• Adrian Dunbar on IMDb
• Adrian Dunbar attacked for describing RUC as sectarian by murdered officer's daughter, belfasttelegraph.co.uk; accessed 4 June 2017.