Doc Martin (2004)

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.

As David Butler and Bob McKenzie used to constantly mention, predictions are a tough business. That's certainly my excuse for my post a month ago where I suggested ITV1's current repeat run of Doc Martin would be inelegantly pulled from the schedules before the end. Four weeks on, not only is it still there, but the ratings are actually going up! Much of this is probably thanks to viewers getting bored of Bonekickers, but in a desperate attempt to justify my original post, I think it's incredible that one of the week's top performers at 9pm on ITV1 is a repeat.

Tonight, ITV1 begins a repeat run of Doc Martin from 2006. Sure, it's a popular series, but who wants to see it again? It's not even the last series, thus making it even less appealing because even if you've come in late, you'll know everything that's going to happen. That's why I'm willing to predict that this series will be dropped long before it finishes the end of its run in eight weeks, and when (not if) it does, I'll come back here to remind ITV1 what a stupid idea it is.

Doc plans screen break

Martin Clunes just loves playing the grumpy TV doctor who has proved such a hit with viewers. "I'm not a happy hero. I'm rather refreshed by the fact that he's just so wrong and bad," grins the star of Doc Martin. Better make the most of the new seven-part series, filmed and set in Cornwall, as there won't be another one for at least a year or two. Martin says he wants to take a break from acting, having also recently been on our screens in the New Zealand drama The Man Who Lost His Head.

Doc Martin steps back into the limelight

Medicine man Martin Clunes loves not having to prescribe a smile. "That's fun for me. It's liberating," says the star of award-winning comedy drama Doc Martin. He's back in the role of curmudgeonly Dr Martin Ellingham, still failing to display any sort of bedside manner as a GP in a small Cornish community, having been forced to give up his high-flying city surgical practice.

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.