In Season 3 ep 4, there is a photo of two characters with a bizarre man in a multicolored track suit, white hair and a cigar.
I figured he was costumed this way because he will appear later and figure in the plot. They do not give his name but refer to him as a celebrity.
Is he supposed to remind us of an actual person? This character was introduced very oddly and then never showed up onscreen.
The photo is of an actual person, it's Jimmy Saville. Sir Jimmy Saville was a famous British tv personality and charity fundraiser. After his death it was discovered that he had infact been a serial sex offender with over 450 victims spanning almost 50 years. He is said to be Britains most prolific known sex offender. The BBC and many high ranking officials were involved in covering up his crimes. This was investigated as part of the operation named in Line of Duty, operation Yew Tree.
Im guessing that as the target audience is British, the show makers didn't feel that need to explain who he was.
He really looked like that! I thought he had to be fictional since he was so freaky looking. I was relieved when he never showed up because I thought he looked too weird to ever be a convincing character.
And now I learn he is real!
He was one of the UK's top 'children entertainers' in the 1970s, and I was a kid then and though he was creepy, as did many others I think.
shareTo British audiences, it is obvious who he is. Foreign viewers wouldn't really miss anything by just seeing him as a perverted celebrity.
shareI wondered if there was some legal reason they didn't say the name. Or maybe they shoehorned the shots in, since the timeline of the Savile story coming out is from the same year that those episodes came out.
His name came up over here in America, so it was a reference many of us could pick up.
shareHis closest American equivalent would probably be Bill Cosby, although Cosby was liked before people knew about his crimes, whereas no one ever liked Savile.
share[deleted]