Martin Clunes

"What a guy!" says Anthony (Jim Howick) of Martin Clunes's curmudgeonly yet likeable character, Reggie Perrin, in tonight's penultimate episode of the series. As Reggie takes up cycling to work, his marriage with his perennially preoccupied wife continues to feel the strain in this improving sitcom remake.

The only problem with the success of this Reggie Perrin remake is that it may end up breathing new life into the old-fashioned sitcom, just when it was ready to disappear for ever after a long and miserable illness. The penultimate episode is funnier and sharper than ever. Reggie (Martin Clunes) lists some of the things that cause him distress, including death, earphones and "a sense that love is the answer coupled with a searing hatred of so many things and people". To ease his misery, he decides to take up cycling to work - an experience he likens to childbirth without a baby at the end. When he returns home, his wife (Fay Ripley) is unusually sympathetic. "At least your face broke the fall," she says.

"That's it, we're moving to Cornwall. I'll teach surfing, you can open a tin mine." As frustrated commuter Reggie Perrin (Martin Clunes) continues to be infuriated by the tedium of his life, his marriage to Nicola (Fay Ripley) is also feeling the strain in this slightly amusing sitcom remake.

For once there seems to be a consensus of opinion around the water cooler - this remake of Reggie Perrin is extremely funny. Tonight, Reggie (Martin Clunes) heads off to Finland with the beautiful Jasmine to spearhead Groomtech's thrust into the global marketplace, and for the first time his wife (Fay Ripley) senses that all is not well in their marriage. "He's changed," she says. "He's stopped taking disposable razors seriously." Reggie's take on globalisation has a universal appeal, but the funniest moment is the receptionist struggling to remember something important.

In this sitcom's original 1970s version, Reggie Perrin was a character who could do something bizarre at any moment - his frustration with the daily, middle-class grind was palpable. Tonight the BBC's remake splutters into its third episode but there's still no sign that Martin Clunes's Reggie is a tenth of the man Leonard Rossiter brought to life.

"I am not a sheep; and there are thousands of people out there who feel exactly the same way!" So, with finely tuned impotence, protests frustrated office worker Reggie Perrin (Martin Clunes) in the second episode of this underwhelming sitcom remake. Perrin's daydreams about a different life get more and more outlandish until, with a fateful kiss, they spill over into the real world.

Martin Clunes knew he was taking a risk when he took on Leonard Rossiter's famous role. He said in an interview: "I'm sure they'll say, I'm not as good as..." For all that, he brings a sympathetic gloom to the character, and there are plenty of good jokes swirling around his misery. Better yet, all the smaller parts have been cast to perfection. With good jokes, strong characters and a classic set-up, what's not to like? Only the lack of ambition. Tonight Reggie tries to find a programme on television that is "easy, warm and comforting". This would have suited him perfectly.

Reactions to this remake have been pretty mixed and if things don't pick up in week two, the BBC could find that it's the viewers who are doing a disappearing act.

Tonight finds Martin Clunes's Reggie having trouble with office small talk and a visit to his company's sympathetic Wellness Person is called for. There are also unwanted visits from his mother and father-in-law to contend with - and Geoffrey Whitehead and Wendy Craig, in particular, have both been pulled from the BBC's bottomless pit of stupidly posh-voiced thesps.

Like the show's ill-judged laughter track (the weaker the gag, the bigger the laugh), these cardboard cut-out characters are harder to believe in than Reggie's flights of fantasy - although Clunes continues to do a heroic job conveying Reggie's disconnection with the rest of the human race.

Don't do it. Seriously, you'll want to sue the Beeb for the 30 minutes you've just lost. Dreadful stuff that even Martin Clunes can't save. Things are lifted a fraction by the presence of Wendy Craig as Reggie's mother. But, sad to say, even her saintly presence doesn't make this worth watching.

Martin Clunes returns as Doc Martin for Series 4

Martin Clunes is back in Cornwall to film a new series of the ratings winning comedy drama Doc Martin for ITV1. He returns to play the curmudgeonly Dr Martin Ellingham whose truculent and tactless manner upsets the convivial community of the picture postcard village of Portwenn on the North Cornwall coast.