Adrian Dunbar

Adrian Dunbar
Dunbar in 2014
Born	(1958-08-01) 1 August 1958 Northern Ireland
Occupation(s)	Actor, Screenwriter, Director
Years active	1984–present
Spouse	Anna Nygh (1986-)

Adrian Dunbar (born 1 August 1958) is an actor from Northern Ireland, best known for his television and theatre work. Dunbar co-wrote and starred in the 1991 film, Hear My Song, nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTA awards.

Personal life

Dunbar was born and brought up in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, the eldest of seven siblings. He was educated by the Presentation Brothers before attending the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He has a daughter and stepson from his 1986 marriage to the Australian actress Anna Nygh. He lives in Crouch End in North London. He is an avid supporter of Arsenal Football Club in London.

Career

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, a fine performance as an innocent murder suspect with amnesia, and also the last episode of Inspector 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 the Irish playwright Brendan Behan. The play was the first to be staged in the Naughton Studion 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 onstage as Vermeer in an adaptation of Girl with a Pearl Earring.

In 2008, Dunbar played the role of Philip Conolly in the critically acclaimed award winning The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce. Dunbar shot the film with fellow Irish actor Ciaran McMenamin in the remote rain-forests of north west Tasmania.

Dunbar is planning to direct Connolly, a movie about Irish labour union organizer James Connolly as seen through the eyes of his daughter, Nora. The production company is Rascal Films.

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

In other media

• 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 episodes. Dunbar's likeness was retconned into the appearance of the character Bail Antilles.
• He fronts his own band, 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.
• He narrates the audiobook productions of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series, a bestselling novel.
• He played a minor role in the 1988 film, The Dawning, alongside Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant, which led to further early roles in his acting career.

Awards

• He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Ulster in June 2009 in recognition of his services to acting.

Select Filmography

Production	Year	Notes
Walter	2014	TV comedy drama
Line of Duty	2012	TV Series
Death in Paradise	2011	TV Series
A Touch of Frost	2010	Last ever episode
Mo	2010	TV Film
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce	2008	Film
The Whistleblowers	2007	1 episode
Eye of the Dolphin	2007	Film
Child of Mine	2005	TV Film
Against Nature	2005	short
The Quatermass Experiment	2005
Kidnapped	2005	Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel of the same name
Mickybo and Me	2004	Film
The Measure of My Days	2003
Suspicion	2003
Murder in Mind	2003	1 episode: Justice
Murphy's Law	2003	1 episode: Manic Munday
Triggermen	2002	Film
Shooters	2002	Film
How Harry Became a Tree	2001	Film
Wild About Harry	2000	Film
The Wedding Tackle	2000	Film
Last Orders	2000
Tough Love	2000
Relative Strangers	1999
The Officer from France	1998
The Jump	1998	4 episodes
The General	1998	Film
Melissa	1997
Richard III	1995
The Near Room	1995	Film
Innocent Lies	1995	Film
Cruel Train	1995
The Blue Boy	1994
Widows' Peak	1994	Film
Pleasure	1994
A Woman's Guide to Adultery	1993
Cracker	1993	2 episodes
A Statement of Affairs	1993
The Crying Game	1992	Film
The Playboys	1992	Film
Inspector Morse	1992	1 episode: Dead on Time
Force of Duty	1992
Children of the North	1991
Hear My Song	1991	Film
Drowning in the Shallow End	1990
The Englishman's Wife	1990
Dealers	1989	Film
My Left Foot	1989	Film
A World Apart	1988	Film
The Four Minute Mile	1988
The Dawning	1988	Film
Unusual Ground Floor Conversion	1987	Film
Strangers in Utah	1987	1 Episode, also featuring Phyllis Law
Sky Bandits	1986	Film
The Price	1985	4 episodes, shot in UT and IL.
Play for Today	1984	1 episode: "The Cry"
After You've Gone	1984

External links

• Adrian Dunbar at IMDb
• Omagh Adrian Dunbar reflects on the Omagh bombing