Martin Clunes

Cornwall calling for Martin Clunes as Doc Martin return

Martin Clunes is back as the grumpy GP in Doc Martin. Susan Griffin sniffs at the sea air in Port Isaac as she discovers the actor's happy shock at how life's panned out.

Martin Clunes interview

Martin Clunes tells TV Choice about making the show with his wife, and how she stops him from arguing with the programme's writers.

Martin Clunes: from man behaving badly to devoted dad

Once the epitome of laddishness, the TV actor Martin Clunes has undergone a remarkable transformation.

Could men behave badly... again?

According to reports circulating the globe, there are rumors of the classic mid-90's British comedy, Men Behaving Badly, returning with Neil Morrisey getting the band back together. Morrissey, who played Tony Smart, has approached the BBC with the idea of seeing how the two main characters Tony and his flatmate, Gary (Martin Clunes), are coping with middle age (one can only imagine since they coped with their early 30's concept of eternal childhood so well).

Doc Martin back after two years

Martin Clunes is back in Cornwall this week filming a new fifth series of Doc Martin - the first since the hit drama's last appearance in 2009.

The legendary lost Men Behaving Badly pilot

Whilst working on this week's Britain In A Box, I had a rare treat when we managed to obtain a copy of the original, never-broadcast pilot of Men Behaving Badly. The pilot was made for Thames TV, directed by their then Head of Comedy, John Howard Davies and starred the eventual cast of the first series, Harry Enfield, Martin Clunes, Caroline Quentin and Lesley Ash.

It was funny that Matt Lucas and David Walliams's much-heralded airport-based mockumentary, Come Fly With Me, crowned a week when Heathrow was full of people not flying with anyone. But was anything else funny? The two of them are terrific mimics, and their array of characters is vast and all are well played. And it had its broad moments of hilarity - I liked the Japanese schoolgirls waiting for Martin Clunes and the security officer cupping the genitals of male passengers. But too much of the material was thin, too many of the sketches overworked and the punchlines too obvious. At this time of year one hopes for ho, ho, ho, but I came away thinking no, no, no.

So how has Reggie been affected by the trauma he stumbled on last week? I won't say exactly what trauma, seeing as some readers won't have watched that episode yet, but given that at the best of times Reggie's grasp on sanity can be shaky, recent events could easily loosen his grip altogether. "Is it me that's crazy or is it the rest of the world?" he wonders aloud to Jasmine as events at Groomtech also take an ugly turn. As usual, Martin Clunes's comic charm is the glue that holds the series together, especially when, as tonight, it feels more like a sad, spiky drama with a taste for the surreal than a sitcom. But the scene with the nail-gun is inspired.

Martin Clunes's affability and a smattering of good lines rescue this re-imagining of the Leonard Rossiter classic from complete pointlessness. I particularly enjoyed Reggie and his adored Jasmine's discussion about her lack of a boyfriend; Jasmine: "Men are damaged, gay, ugly or married." Reggie: "Snow White's less well-known friends." But Reggie is in trouble. Grot is doing thunderously well with its terrible products and his evil boardroom bosses want to slim down Groomtech ready to sell it to the highest bidder. When he breaks the news of imminent redundancy to his staff, there is much elaborate special pleading. Things aren't much better at home where Reggie's neglected wife Nicola (Fay Ripley) is jobless and moping, and finding it hard to fend off the attentions of her randy next-door neighbour (Alexander Armstrong).

If you've ever wondered what someone tap-dancing on Leonard Rossiter's grave would look like, tune in for this version of Reggie Perrin. It's sort of like watching the original Seventies sitcom, only without any decent jokes and recorded in front of an apparently lobotomised live studio audience who guffaw at puns that Two Pints of Lager would have scorned. Even solid comic actors like Fay Ripley and Alexander Armstrong can't make this script work, while Martin Clunes, though affable enough, is badly miscast as the blackly witty Perrin. Tonight, our hero is ordered to fire one of his staff, with unhilarious consequences.