Why Martin Clunes admits: There's a part of me that could be an alcoholic

By Nicole Lampert

PUBLISHED: 19:46 EST, 6 December 2012 | UPDATED: 02:54 EST, 7 December 2012

Troubled: Martin Clunes as the mayor in The Town, the new drama he stars in

Martin Clunes is just back from a year off and he admits he feels a bit funny about, ‘getting my acting out of the cupboard again’.

‘It is a bit like learning to play an old instrument,’ he muses, as we talk in the makeshift canteen (basically a lorry with tables and chairs) on the High Wycombe set of his new drama The Town.

‘I have been doing Doc Martin for so long that it is like a second skin that I can just slip in and out of, for all its complexity.

‘Coming onto a strange set feels, well, it feels a bit tough to put yourself out there again,’ he admits cautiously. ‘But it has made me realise how much I have missed it.’

He plays the town mayor Len, who is caught up in the mysterious suicide of a middle-aged couple. Andrew Scott, best known for playing Moriarty in Sherlock, is cast as their son, Mark, who tries to find out what killed his parents.

Len drinks from morning to night and during the course of the three-part drama we come to realise he does so to anaesthetise himself from a terrible tragedy in his past.

So was it hard to play a drunk? ‘Hmmm, there is a side of me that could be an alcoholic,’ admits the actor who was once banned for drunk driving and recently lost his licence for speeding.

‘And, let’s face it, I know Neil Morrissey,’ he adds jokingly. ‘Generally, though, I am a happy drunk unless it is cider, which gives me too many opinions.’

Boozing, of course, was a regular pastime of Gary Strang, the laddish character with which Martin first found fame in the early 1990s in hit comedy Men Behaving Badly, about two oafish flatmates, played by him and Neil, as well as friends Leslie Ash and Caroline Quentin.

He is still close to Neil. The pair recently  celebrated both turning 50 and it has made them think again about a Men Behaving Badly reunion. ‘It would have to be Simon Nye (the original writer), the four of us and it would have to be bloody good,’ he says.

‘We nearly did it once, but then  Caroline pulled out because she did wonder where you could take these characters. We might end up looking a bit seedy, but it could be fun.’

Laddish: Martin with Neil Morrissey in Men Behaving Badly. The pair are still close friends and have considered a reunion for the show

Men Behaving Badly made Martin famous. But it was Doc Martin, which he has made with his television producer wife Philippa Braithwaite since 2004, which turned him into a national treasure. The show, about gruff London surgeon Dr Martin Ellingham, who is forced to relocate and become a GP after becoming ill at the sight of blood, regularly garners up to 10 million viewers and is screened in 70 countries.

There will be a sixth series filmed early next year, even though Martin had previously threatened to end the show because he feels it is too ‘cosy’.

‘It has been good to do something that is not Doc Martin,’ he says. ‘But I will be going back to it. I’ve realised that there is an edge in Doc Martin — if you look hard enough.’

He admits he would have liked more work outside of Doc Martin, but finds much of what he is offered is dross. ‘You can only pick from the jobs you are offered,’ he says. ‘I haven’t tended to get anything, or I’ve just got c**p films that somebody wrote. It seems that if you get the font right you can make anything look like a script — even if it’s just a bunch  of typing.’

Not that he spends much time at home with his feet up. ‘This is actually quite relaxing compared to home,’ he admits. ‘I can’t sit down there in the  middle of the day; there are a million jobs to do.’

The son of classical actor Alec Clunes, South London-born Martin was determined to give his only daughter, Emily, now 13, the idyllic childhood he lost out on when his father died when he was just eight. Several years ago the family moved to a 130-acre farm in Dorset. At first they grew only their own vegetables, then started with chickens and horses and now consider themselves farmers.

Time to move on: Martin Clunes starred in Doc Martin, pictured right, for five series aired over five years

‘I don’t have time to get bored,’ he says. ‘Being a farmer is extremely hard work. My day starts with the school run, then one of the dogs has a bad elbow so he is on lead walk for half an hour every morning.

‘The horses have to be fed and the sheep and cattle fed. One of the ponies has [the disease] laminitis and we have two young calves to look after. I am determined to show a profit from our farm and so if I am there I need to be working. We all help out; Emily was holding the torch when the lambs were being born. I love it all apart from the drive to the abattoir. But that is what farming is about.’

Martin is an animal lover and, while it may have seemed a little quiet on the acting front, he is still a regular on our televisions with shows about man’s  relationship with dogs and with horses.

He is now filming a new show, focusing on working horses, which has taken him around the world as well as his own backyard, as he has two Clydesdale horses. And he is also preparing to make a documentary about a sanctuary which encourages lion cubs back into the wild.

‘I have always loved animals and I am involved with  several animal welfare charities,’ he says. ‘These are all ideas I am pitching to the networks and thankfully they are being picked up.’

Although he is staying in Cliveden, the gorgeous stately home turned five-star hotel, for filming, he admits even thinking about the animals is making him homesick. ‘Anywhere that is not home gets on my nerves,’ he admits before harrumphing: ‘There was a woman in the hotel this morning who wanted Diet Coke and waffles for breakfast.’

His farm is also a sanctuary from the celebrity which hits him as soon as people meet him. ‘You can’t start minding fame,’ he says softly. ‘I have seen people go mad minding it. You have a choice; just like you do in any circumstances. Everyone has a  camera nowadays and as long as I am not with my family I don’t mind that. If I am with my family I politely decline to be photographed.

‘As for the rest of the time; I live on a farm on a hill and fame is not terribly important there.’

• The Town is on ITV1, at 9pm on Wednesday.