MARTIN Compston could be set to work with Irvine Welsh in a new drama about Irish republican leader James Connolly.
Compston and Line of Duty co-stars Adrian Dunbar and Vicky McClure are in talks with Welsh about a series centred on the Edinburgh-born Connolly who was a key figure in the 1916 Easter Rising.
The Scottish star has previously visited the prison where Connolly was executed in Ireland and said playing the revolutionary would be his dream role.
Dunbar, who starred alongside Compston as Superintendent Ted Hastings in Line of Duty, said he intends to work on the drama’s script with Welsh.
Dunbar has said he contacted Welsh through Jonny Owen, McClure’s broadcasting partner.
Speaking on the Out To Lunch with Jay Rayner podcast, he said: "I might be putting my toe in the water again regarding a script.
"I'm talking to Vicky and Martin and Irvine Welsh and a few people about the possibility of writing something about James Connolly, the revolutionary.
"Irvine fits in because of Edinburgh and James Connolly and the fact that he's a very good friend of Jonny Owen who is Vicky's partner."
Compston had talked of his dream to play Connolly while on RTE show Ask Me Anything after his visit to Kilmainham Gaol where the republican leader was killed by a firing squad.
He said: "It was somewhere I had always wanted to go, that period of history fascinates me.
"I may be a bit young for it at the moment but to play James Connolly would be a dream role for me.
"I think people forget or people don't know he was Scottish.
"Just going there and being in that environment, the history just seeps out of the walls."
Connolly was born in Edinburgh’s Cowgate to Irish parents in 1868 and got involved with the Independent Labour Party that Keir Hardie started in 1893.
He then moved to Dublin and founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party, working closely with renowned trade unionist James Larkin.
Connolly later played a key role as a leader in the Easter Rising against the British in Dublin before being executed in 1916.
