Why Mark Bonnar is unravelling the Russian poisoning story that rocked Britain in Litvinenko
Mark Bonnar is everywhere, but when the actor gets stopped by fans in the street, they struggle to recall where they know him from. “‘I’m sure we’ve met, is your boy Jimmy?’” they ask, assuming he’s a parent they’ve spotted on the school run. In these circumstances, Bonnar – who’s been nominated for five Scottish Baftas and has won one – doesn’t call himself an actor. “What I usually say is, ‘I’m on the telly sometimes,’” he says. Then comes the “Aha!’ moment, and he watches the pieces fall into place, with one (or many) of his characters coming to mind.
Bonnar has built a career out of this quiet ubiquity. He played the corrupt cop Mike Dryden in season two of Line of Duty; the sweary, straight-talking friend to Rob Delaney in Catastrophe; and a detective’s mate with a murky history in BBC’s Shetland. That’s three of the more than 65 performances he’s delivered on screen, and his stage work, which stretches back further and to esteemed places like London’s National Theatre, is similarly prolific.
