Adrian Dunbar has said the cast of Line of Duty "feel the pressure" as fans await the new series, which is expected to arrive next year. The actor, who plays Superintendent Ted Hastings, spoke as he prepares to direct the Beckett: Lieben 2026 Biennale in Liverpool next week.
Fans eagerly await new series
Line of Duty first aired in 2012 and follows the fictional AC-12, an anti-corruption team investigating shady officers within the police force. The finale of the last series in 2021 reached over 15 million viewers.
Speaking to the ECHO about the upcoming series, Dunbar said: "I think it's going to be very exciting. Jed Mercurio has written some fabulous twists and turns. Robert Carlyle, who's playing our guest lead, is going to be fantastic. I'm really looking forward to it, keeping our fingers crossed that we can deliver something that the public really want and expect. We've got a big audience out there waiting for it, so fingers crossed."
Pressure to deliver for viewers
He admitted that trying to "deliver" for their large audience comes with significant "pressure". He said: "We do feel pressure because you meet people and they've all gone back and watched it again, or are going to watch it again and get up to speed, and kind of thinking to themselves, 'Where is this next series going to start from?' So the closer we get to it coming out, the more pressure will build."
Despite the mounting pressure, he is confident the crew will deliver what fans expect. He continued: "The first thing you look to is the script, and the scripts are very, very good. And that's down to Jed Mercurio, and he's the one who's got the most on the line, as it were. But we can rely on him to be really working hard on it and refining what exactly we need for this series."
Hastings' role in series seven
The end of the last series saw Supt Hastings forced into mandatory retirement as AC-12 underwent a restructure. He is still expected to feature prominently in series seven, albeit in a different role.
Beyond Line of Duty, Dunbar reflected on Liverpool's role in his career. In 1985, while performing in Anne Devlin's Ourselves Alone at Liverpool's Playhouse, he lived in the city. He said: "I stayed up on Huskisson Street with Beryl Williams for two months, and I got a real sense of the city and how resilient it was, because it was under a lot of pressure at that point. There seemed to be England, and then there seemed to be Liverpool, it seemed to be a place apart."
He added: "There were a lot of guys going door to door trying to sell stuff just to make a few quid. You could see the people were resilient, that whatever was happening, they were going to get through it. It was tough, but also it was vibrant, it was still alive. We'd end up in Toxteth, in the Sierra Leone Club, or we'd be down around Chinatown, or we'd be in the Adelphi, drinking around the city. It was great, it still had a lot of vibrancy, but at the same time, it was terribly poor."
Dunbar's career spans stage and screen, including writing and directing. His 1991 film Hear My Song was nominated for a BAFTA, and he has gained further acclaim in Line of Duty and Ridley, as well as returning to stage work in Kiss Me, Kate in the West End.
