Eileen Atkins

Doc Martin Episode Three review

Eileen Atkins shines in an episode focusing on Ruth's new radio career and a potential secret admirer.

It's a rare thing but the pleasure of Doc Martin (ITV) is in the minor characters, the pepperings of humanity who surround Martin Clunes's borderline sociopathic central figure.

This made the opening episode of the current series rather tough going, as much of it was spent with just the Doc and his new bride, Louisa, traipsing about the woods in their wedding finery - a shotgun-toting spin on the old nightmare honeymoon night chestnut.

Obviously, Doc Martin is a fantasy show - it seems remarkably easy to get an appointment with the Portwenn GP - but it goes off the rails when it strays from its quirky community beat. Many shows get that horribly wrong, with all the supporting characters reduced to caricatures, but Doc Martin has created a credible TV community and it's a shame when it wastes them.

The idea last night was to pack some emotional muscle into Doc Martin and Louisa's oddball romance but it came across as laboured farce. It was back with babysitting Ruth (an underused Eileen Atkins), PC Penhale and a comedy power cut that Doc Martin got its old familiar glow back.

It's two years since we last saw flinty curmudgeon Dr Martin Ellingham and when we return to the pretty Cornish village of Portwenn nothing has changed - he's still a miserable git. Even the prospect of his much-anticipated wedding to his beloved Louisa doesn't put a song in his heart. The couple's first attempt at matrimony fell apart, but at last they are successful (this isn't a spoiler, the nuptials are in the opening minutes).

The ceremony is smartly dispatched by a very impatient groom and we spend the rest of the episode with the happy couple (Martin Clunes and Caroline Catz) as they confront a string of disasters on a hopeless honeymoon. There's not much of a story, just a series of increasingly weird and barely credible incidents. Back home Aunty Ruth (splendid Eileen Atkins) is babysitting, and has her fair share of troubles, too.

When he was at Cambridge University, bookish Hugh Dennis was nicknamed "Desk Dennis" by his fellows because he was so serious about his studies. To this day Dennis is a quietly thoughtful rather than raucous comedian. So it's unsurprising that his comedy hero is the resolutely unshowbizzy Ronnie Barker.

In parallel with events in his own career, Dennis looks at Barker's life. He meets actress Dame Eileen Atkins, who got to know Barker during his days in rep, and there's a nice chat with Christopher Biggins about Porridge, which "almost made me want to go to prison," says Dennis.

Radio Times review

The 37th best TV show of 2011 according to the Radio Times.

Manna for lovers of the macabre - a shudder one minute, a cackle the next. Series two had no qualms about meting out grisly ends to its lead personae, at a rate of roughly one bloodbath per episode. At least psycho-mum Maureen got to appal us all with her terrifying Tina Turner karaoke before carking it. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton invested even their vilest creations with flashes of pathos; new to this run were extreme fag hag Hattie, shackling a gay Iranian man in her boudoir, and beyond-anal librarian Jeremy Goode, haunted by the Silent Singer. Add to the brew a glam Imelda Staunton, Eileen Atkins at her most severe and a cameo from cult horror director John Landis, and this show left you scared and scarred.

Another biggish guest star arrives: Julie Graham memorably spent three years as Martin Clunes's screen wife in William and Mary, and here they are again, reunited. Except they're not quite, because in Doc Martin, Graham plays the wife of PC Penhale (John Marquez). That's odd, considering we didn't know he was married. It's even odder that his wife thinks he's only just arrived in Portwenn.

Meanwhile, Cornwall's worst restaurateur Bert Large (Ian McNeice) is deeper in debt than ever, a fisherman keeps fainting, Eileen Atkins desperately deserves more screen time as Aunt Ruth, and Louisa's mother is still causing trouble, above and beyond her annoyingly nomadic accent.

As for the Doc himself, an episode full of the customary, satisfying sight of him being rude to people who fully deserve it has a glimpse of warmth at the end. That it's hard-won makes it all the more affecting - Clunes is brilliant at letting those little flickers shine through.

If you're looking for a bit of escapism then you could do worse than visit the quaint Cornish seaside retreat of Port Wenn in this light - and hugely popular - family drama, now midway through its fifth series. It's easy to see why Martin Clunes's shirty surgeon decided to stay in the idyllic fishing port rather than return to life in London as he nearly did at the end of the last series. The sleepy pace gently washes over you and the magnificent views (in reality those of the village of Port Isaac, which is indeed in Cornwall) transport the viewer to a picture-postcard paradise.

Tonight Clunes's no-nonsense Auntie Ruth (the splendid Eileen Atkins) is on formidable form cheating at chess, berating her chickens, and wanting to "bring back capital punishment for people who use their mobile phones on the train". The programme avoids banality by touching upon some serious medical issues. When PC Penhale's (John Marquez) ex-wife Maggie (guest star Julie Graham) turns up thinking it is April 2008, the Doc quickly spots signs of transient global amnesia and arranges an urgent brain scan.

Louisa's thoughtless, feckless mother (Louise Jameson) arrives in Portwenn to meet her new grandchild. But granny isn't welcome as it becomes obvious that Louisa and her mum have Big Issues from way, way back in Louisa's childhood.

But that doesn't stop Louisa, who seems to spend a disproportionate amount of time pushing that unwieldy pram around the village, from asking mum - who is smoking a fag at the time - to babysit. Yes, of course, it all goes a bit wrong. Meanwhile the Doc continues to change his new son's nappies while wearing rubber gloves.

The only sane note is struck by splendid Auntie Ruth (the divine Eileen Atkins) who is very gamely making a go of the farm.

Dame Eileen Atkins, star of Cranford and co-creator of Upstairs Downstairs, is proving a delightful addition to this series as Doctor Ellingham's (Martin Clunes) equally grouchy aunt, Ruth, whose droll observations on life in the countryside pump up the comedy quotient considerably. Tonight Ruth clashes with some bumpkinish neighbours who keep stealing from her, and the doctor wrestles with fatherhood and oddball patients. With first-rate acting and lush Cornish scenery, it's a significant cut above similar cosy dramas.