Topical article, dull in character primarily (8)
I believe the answer is:
thematic
'topical' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'dull in character primarily' is the wordplay.
'dull' becomes 'mat' ('mat' can be similar in meaning to 'dull').
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'character primarily' becomes 'theic' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'mat' put inside 'theic' is 'THEMATIC'.
'article' is the link.
This may not be right. It may belong to another bit of the clue.
(Other definitions for thematic that I've seen before include "With a unifying subject" , "on one particular topic" , "of an idea" , "Relating to a particular subject" , "Relating to a particular topic" .)