I’ve only ever seen about three episodes of Doc Martin, and those occasions have really been by accident rather than intent, but after watching last night’s episode, I have to applaud the formula; it’s the same one that makes shows such as Jam & Jerusalem and Vicar of Dibley work.

It seems to go something like this…

Make quirkiness your main ingredient – in this instance, a people hating GP who’s also haemophobic – and lob in loads of other characters with quirks. Mix them all together in a picturesque village setting, add liberal amounts of one-liners and puns then garnish with a love interest or two.

And it clearly works, for Doc Martin has a viewership more loyal than your average Labrador. Read more & comment »

Headmistress Louisa Glasson has left Portwenn, and Dr Martin Ellingham has begun to question what keeps him in Cornwall. It’s certainly not his relentlessly annoying patients. It’s certainly not the amorous advances of the infatuated local chemist, MRS TISHELL. Martin has realised that if he is ever to escape, he must conquer his worst fear: the blood phobia that ended his surgical career.

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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.

The last series, which won nine million viewers, ended with a wedding day disaster when the doc and his bride, Louisa, both got cold feet just as they were about to take their vows.

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ITV has announced that it’s re-commissioned of some of its most popular dramas, all of which are set for production over the next couple of month.

The much loved Foyle’s War, created by Anthony Horowitz and starring Michael Kitchen, will return with three new style episodes; It’s June 1945 and while VE Day has been celebrated in Britain, the war continues elsewhere in the world.

Like everyone else, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle needs to feel his way in this new world. Keen to retire, but bound to his old job by the shortage of senior men, Foyle is thrust into the dangerous worlds of international conspiracy and execution, military racism and national betrayal… Read more & comment »