Martin Clunes

Martin Clunes is the best thing about this ambitious revival of a great sitcom. What made Leonard Rossiter's suburban middle-manager so loveable in the 1970s original was the way he combined hangdog disillusion with a sense of mischief, and Clunes hits the same notes. But he's a bigger, taller actor: where Rossiter was the little man caught up in the system, Clunes seems to have outgrown it.

Today's Reggie works not at Sunshine Desserts but next door at Groomtech, where he's in charge of developing a ten-blade disposable razor. He has a gormless secretary, two breathless (and unfunny) underlings and an overbearing, CJ-ish boss called Chris, who at one point does say, "I didn't get where I am today..." The trouble is, office egomania has evolved since the days of CJ, in ways that Peep Show and The Office have mocked brilliantly.

Against the likes of them, this seems like a blunt instrument. It has good moments (Reggie's suggestion for a playground: "Put in a rifle range - kid's love that"). But like Reggie's commuter trains, it's faltering, unreliable and a bit behind the times.

We probably didn't need a remake of Leonard Rossiter's The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, given that middle-class/workplace alienation has now been parodied so effectively in the likes of Men Behaving Badly, The Office and Peep Show. Still, the first episode of this latest airing - which now sees Reggie as a bored razor blade guru - is thoroughly watchable thanks mostly to a cutting script and a sterling performance by Martin Clunes.

Martin Clunes on playing Reggie Perrin

Martin Clunes talks about why he doesn't care what critics and 'pedants' think of his portrayal of a 21st-century Reggie Perrin.

Martin Clunes takes on Reggie Perrin

Thirty years later, Martin Clunes replaces Leonard Rossiter as the sitcom drone in the throes of a mid-life crisis. The Times reports from the set.

Martin Clunes Interview

Martin Clunes says his own life could not be more different from the unhappy salesman desperate to escape his dull life.

Reggie Perrin rides again

The much-loved Reggie Perrin, having fallen and risen, rises again - with Martin Clunes in the role made famous by Leonard Rossiter. The Independent joins the cast and writers on set.

It does not say much about broadcasters' confidence in new writing when they fall back on reviving something tried and tested. There seems to be a lot of this about at the moment. It has just been confirmed by the BBC that Martin Clunes is going to recreate the classic lead role made famous in the seventies by Leonard Rossiter, in a remake of The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin. It will now be called simply Perrin and no doubt there will be lots of headlines about Reggie behaving very badly.

Clunes is always good value and quality writer Simon Nye is working on it with Reggie's creator David Nobbs, which sounds good. The only thing that worries me is that we have slightly been here before with The Legacy of Reginald Perrin, the 1996 series that, unlike the forthcoming version gathered together original cast members, but like the forthcoming version, lacked the real star, Leonard Rossiter, due to Rossiter being dead. Which is a bit like Hamlet without Hamlet.

The strange afterlife of Reginald Perrin

A character whose initials spell RIP was always destined more for death than resurrection but Reginald Iolanthe Perrin is to rise again, with Martin Clunes stepping into the shoes that Leonard Rossiter left on the beach when he faked his own demise in the David Nobbs comedy that ran on BBC1 from 1976-1979.

A couple's plans to retire are scuppered as each of their adult children return home. This BBC sitcom ran from 1983-87, providing an early role for Martin Clunes (as one of the offspring). Inoffensive and uninspiring, it was just another in a long line of tedious middle class comedies in which stuffy old dad and his stuffy old values are the butt of jokes for his 'with it' kids... yawn.

In itself, it's quite enjoyable; and I dare say there isn't a single person in Britain who won't enjoy watching Martin Clunes enjoying himself in the novel role of a curmudgeon, but, really. A plot where a man in the village starts to grow a cracking pair of tits? Tsk.