Martin Clunes

Alexander Martin Clunes, OBE (born 28 November 1961) is a British actor best known for portraying Martin Ellingham in the ITV drama series Doc Martin and Gary Strang in Men Behaving Badly. Clunes has narrated a number of documentaries for ITV, the first of which was Islands of Britain in 2009. He has since presented a number of documentaries centred on animals.

Clunes was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2015 Birthday Honours for services to drama, charity and the community.

Early life

Clunes was educated at the Royal Russell School in Croydon, London and later at the Arts Educational School. He is the son of classical actor Alec Clunes, who died of lung cancer when Clunes was eight years old. He has an older sister Amanda. He is a nephew of the late actor Jeremy Brett.

Career

Clunes served his first role in rep at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and his first television appearance came in the 1983 Doctor Who story Snakedance. But a sporadic career led to his supplementing his income as a photo model for Gilbert and George, and he can be seen in their 1983 work World.

Doc Martin

Doc Martin is a British television medical comedy drama series starring Martin Clunes in the title role. It was created by Dominic Minghella after the character of Dr Martin Bamford in the 2000 comedy film Saving Grace. The show is set in the fictional seaside village of Portwenn and filmed on location in the village of Port Isaac, Cornwall, England, with most interior scenes shot in a converted local barn. Seven series aired between 2004 and 2015, together with a feature-length special that aired on Christmas Day 2006. The seventh series began airing on ITV on 7 September 2015 and aired its last episode "The Doctor Is Out" on 2 November 2015.

Synopsis

Dr Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes), a brilliant and successful vascular surgeon at Imperial College London, develops haemophobia (a fear of blood), forcing him to stop practising surgery. He obtains a post as the sole general practitioner (GP) in the sleepy Cornish village of Portwenn, where he had spent childhood holidays with his Aunt Joan (Stephanie Cole), who owns a local farm. Upon arriving in Portwenn – where, to his frustration, the locals address him as "Doc Martin" – he finds the surgery (medical clinic) in disarray and inherits an incompetent receptionist, Elaine Denham (Lucy Punch). In Series 2–4, she is replaced by Pauline Lamb (Katherine Parkinson), a new receptionist, and later also a phlebotomist. In Series 5, Morwenna Newcross (Jessica Ransom) takes up the post.

Doc Martin (baseball)

Harold Winthrop Martin (1887–1935) was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. He played for the Philadelphia Athletics during the 1908, 1911 and 1912 seasons. He attended Tufts University.

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