The last we saw of Adrian Dunbar, he was stepping into a lift and heading off into TV’s great beyond at the conclusion of season six of Line of Duty: Ted Hastings had left the building. So what did the future hold for the actor who had brought the character to life so charismatically?
Mother of God, at last we have our answer. Dunbar has been parachuted into a toe-curling tourism infomercial airing on the UK’s obscurish Channel 5, whose specialities include reboots of All Creatures Great and Small and documentaries about Fred West – in fact you wouldn’t rule out a crossover. It’s called Adrian Dunbar: My Ireland (Wednesday, 8pm), although, given the official backing of Tourism Ireland, Fáilte Ireland and Tourism NI, it really ought to be called Please, Please, Please Visit Our Country.
There are languid drone shots as Dunbar contrasts life in the ‘big smoke’ with the ‘serenity of the Emerald Isle’. You look forward to the episode in which he waits for a no-show Dart, punches and kicks his way on to a rush-hour commuter bus or finds somewhere to rent
Make that countries. In the first of two instalments Dunbar zigzags across the Border, from Donegal to his hometown of Enniskillen and then to Carlingford, in Co Louth. There are lots of languid drone shots as Dunbar contrasts life in the “big smoke” (London, apparently) with the “serenity of the Emerald Isle”. You look forward to the episode in which he waits for a no-show Dart. Or has to punch and kick his way on to a rush-hour commuter bus. Or find somewhere to rent.
Whatever about Dunbar honouring us with a visit from the big smoke, this isn’t Tourism Ireland’s first begorrah rodeo. In 2021 Imelda May popped up on Sky Arts for a semi-official cringefest celebration of Dublin that featured May clopping around in a carriage, sampling beer (can you guess the brand?) and alarming passersby with impromptu poetry readings.
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If Dunbar has ever written poetry he keeps it to himself, thankfully. He instead walks along an Atlantic cliff edge in Donegal, swings by Glenveagh National Park and pays a call to Nevin Maguire’s restaurant in Blacklion, Co Cavan.
He is easy-going, ambling company. But you’ve got to wonder how deeply into diddly-dee territory our tourism agencies are prepared to venture to sell Ireland as a getaway destination.
The saving grace is that Dunbar does seem to be enjoying it all. And, with series seven of Line of Duty rumoured to be in the works, it’s nice he’s keeping busy until Ted Hastings rides again. In every other way, My Ireland is the TV equivalent of being waterboarded by that guy who hangs around Temple Bar dressed as a moth-eaten leprechaun. Why weren’t you watching the World Cup instead?
