As actor Mark Bonnar looks back on his childhood he sometimes wonders how he got through it.
Bonnar, 54, star of hit shows including Guilt, Line of Duty and Shetland, admitted there were times he used to dress up as his music hero Adam Ant, as he delivered newspapers in one of the toughest areas of Edinburgh.
The striking image of him walking around the streets in the early 80s dressed as the punk-inspired pop star is one he will never forget.
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Bonnar, who lived in Lochend, Edinburgh, throughout his secondary school years, said: “I would say Adam Ant was my first crush, to be honest.
“He was on the ceiling above my bed .There were two posters. There was Adam Ant and there was Debbie Harry.
“I think I really fell for Adam in a big way, to the extent I used to have a paper round where we stayed in Lochend – in Restalrig Circus – and sometimes I would don a white stripe across my nose and tie some ribbons in my hair and go and do my paper-round.
“I’m surprised I’m still here to be honest, after doing a paper round dressed up like that in Lochend.”
Bonnar, who has been filming the third and final series of hit drama Guilt, travelled around Scotland for much of his early childhood before settling in Edinburgh.
His dad, Stan, is an artist who was commissioned to build concrete statues across Scotland’s New Towns.
Fittingly for a family who settled in a street with “circus” in its name, the statues he built were of large animals and are still on display in towns around the country.
Bonnar said: “We moved around quite a lot. I was born in Edinburgh, then we moved to Dundee for a couple of years while my dad finished training.He was doing his degree at Duncan of Jordanstone.
“After that we moved around a lot because he was an artist in the New Towns, so he kind of went wherever the jobs called.
“Dad’s hippos are still in Glenrothes, in and around the housing schemes there. He’s got elephants in both Glasgow and East Kilbride, and in Stonehouse as well.”
Growing up, Bonnar fell in love with the slapstick comedy acting of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and The Two Ronnies – Corbett and Barker.
He said: “My earliest memories are probably of Laurel and Hardy, and The Two Ronnies a bit later on.
“Laurel and Hardy captivated me on TV, which was still black and white.
“My mum says I never used to blink when I was watching them. I used to just be wide eyed. There was something about their innocence – the slapstick.
“When you’re that age it’s hilarious. They were my first love probably and remain so to this day. I just loved them and still do.”
Bonnar’s roles – often no-nonsense, gritty characters – couldn’t be further removed from his comedy heroes.
One programme he said gave him nightmares as a child was cult 70s sci-fi favourite Space: 1999.
Despite this, for the last four years he has been playing one of the show’s favourite characters, Commander John Koenig, in a new reimagined audio series from Big Finish.
He said: “I was about seven when Space: 1999 came out. It was one of the things I loved watching with Dad. That was the joy of it.
“It had an alien who could change shape into any animal, which was amazing, and I was always excited to see what she’d turn into to combat whatever they were facing.
“We lived on a farm back then and I remember watching it and then dreaming, having nightmares that were set in that house. In fact, the nightmare was about one of the episodes we have just recorded.”
When it was filmed, Space: 1999 was the most expensive TV series on British telly.
At the heart of the series was Martin Landau as Commander John Koenig.
When Bonnar was given the chance to audition for that role, he was excited and nervous.
He said: “Martin Landau had been so iconic in that role – you were drawn to him and couldn’t take your eyes
off him.
“I relished the possibility of playing that part because I loved it when I was wee, but that puts added pressure on.
“You want to do a good job and pay respect to the source material but, also, you are stepping into big shoes so you want to be as good as you can be.”
Bonnar, who had to master an American accent for the role, found he had the part when someone said too much at a recording with a former Doctor Who and fellow Scot.
He said: “I was in the studio, working with Sylvester McCoy, and somebody let it slip. I went, ‘What?’ They said, ‘No, nothing… you’ll probably get a phone call soon’. I got a call five minutes later.”
The actor said he was delighted to be allowed to wear an original Moonbase Alpha uniform to shoot publicity pictures for the audio series.
He doesn’t mind if fans of the series picture original Koenig star Landau as they listen to the new audio versions of the reimagined show.
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He said: “It’s what I do. If I’m having trouble saying a line accent-wise or having a little bit of a brain fart as far as what I should be doing, I always think of Martin Landau because, although I’m not trying to do him, he originated the character and the bones of it are still him.”
Landau died in 2017, but while Bonnar believes “you should never meet your heroes”, he said he
would have made an exception in that case.
He said: “Often, in my job, you find yourself on set with big name famous people and the truth is, even the most charismatic, incredible actors are just folk. We’re actually all quite dull. But I would have loved to have had the chance to work with him.”
If he could tell his seven-year-old self he’d one day play Commander Koenig for a whole new generation of Space: 1999 fans, what would his reply be?
He thinks for a few moments and then laughs. “He’d probably have said, ‘Will ye f***’.”
● Pre-order Space: 1999 Volume 3: Dragon’s Domain, £19.99, now from www.bigfinish.com
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