FERMANAGH’S very own TV superstar Adrian Dunbar has revealed his late father Sean was the inspiration for some of his now famous Line of Duty quotes.
The Enniskillen man turned many a familiar Fermanagh phrase into what have become known as ‘Tedisms’ on the hit BBC show, in which he played Supt Ted Hastings. Possibly the most quoted of all has been ‘mother of God’, which Mr Dunbar recently revealed was his father’s own personal favourite. He also revealed many were unscripted and he just added them in as he went along while on set.
“Some of them were ad libbed, the ‘wee donkey’ was ad-libbed,” Mr Dunbar recently told Ireland AM. “It was something I heard someone saying a couple of years before, somebody just exasparated came out with that, becaue it’s even more exasperated when you add ‘the wee donkey.’ That was one I just dropped in one day.”
He continued: “They’re all there for a reason, to sort of take the steam our of that particular part of the interrogation and move us on to somewhere else. It was like cutting across everything, which it did really well. Jed had put in the ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph’ part, I just added in ‘the wee donkey.’
“The ‘mother of God stuff is all my father. He used to say that stuff all the time.
“In fact, he used to say it so much he was able to just shorten it to ‘mother of’ and everybody knew what he meant.”
Mr Dunbar recently sent social media into a spin when it was revealed his next role would also see him playing the part of a police officer, having landed the eponymous role in hotly-anticipated new ITV thriller, Ridley.
Written and created by Paul Matthew Thompson, known for his iconic drama Vera, Mr Dunbar will play DI Alex Ridley, who is retiring after 25 years on the force and is being forced out of the job he loves.
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