One of UK actor Martin Clune's most famous roles is playing the title character in the comedy-drama "Doc Martin", where he was a doctor with
a phobia of blood. The character is reportedly developed from the
comedy movie "Saving Grace" from the year 2000, which also starred
Martin Clunes as the doctor.

*BUT* ...
we have just started watching an old UK sitcom called "All at No. 20"
from 1986 in which Martin Clunes turns up in episode 2 as a medical
student who is squeamish of blood (although the student's name is Henry
rather than Martin) . :-)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_at_No_20>


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Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

One of UK actor Martin Clune's most famous roles is playing the title >character in the comedy-drama "Doc Martin", where he was a doctor with
a phobia of blood. The character is reportedly developed from the
comedy movie "Saving Grace" from the year 2000, which also starred
Martin Clunes as the doctor.

*BUT* ...
we have just started watching an old UK sitcom called "All at No. 20"
from 1986 in which Martin Clunes turns up in episode 2 as a medical
student who is squeamish of blood (although the student's name is Henry >rather than Martin) . :-)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_at_No_20>

I had commented about this when we were discussing the adaptation for
American television. As I recall, it's the same writer.

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On 2026-06-15 3:35 a.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

One of UK actor Martin Clune's most famous roles is playing the title
character in the comedy-drama "Doc Martin", where he was a doctor with
a phobia of blood. The character is reportedly developed from the
comedy movie "Saving Grace" from the year 2000, which also starred
Martin Clunes as the doctor.

*BUT* ...
we have just started watching an old UK sitcom called "All at No. 20"
from 1986 in which Martin Clunes turns up in episode 2 as a medical
student who is squeamish of blood (although the student's name is Henry
rather than Martin) . :-)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_at_No_20>

I had commented about this when we were discussing the adaptation for American television. As I recall, it's the same writer.

As I understand it, the Doc Martin series evolved from a pair of movies
called Doc Martin (2001) and Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie
(2003).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365130/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363572/

Craig Ferguson was one of the writers of both movies. (Yes, the same
Craig Ferguson we remember from his late night talk show.)

Looking at the descriptions of the movies (which I haven't seen), they
only had a few elements of the series: Clunes's character was a doctor
and he moved to a village on the Cornish coast where he had spend time
as a boy. But his character in the movies was already married and his
wife had cheated on him with three of his best friends. There was no relationship with the village schoolteacher and no blood phobia as far
as I can tell.

None of which is to say that this "All at no 20" show is completely
unrelated though; Clunes may have persuaded the writers of the TV series
to resurrect that bit of business into the TV series when that got the
green light.

~~

I've been playing Scrabble with a British friend online for many years
and mentioned Best Medicine to her when I first heard about it, as well
as the announcement that Clunes himself would appear in Best Medicine
himself as the father of Martin Best. She didn't have access to the show itself - Sky One has only begun airing it this week and she doesn't have
Sky One - but YouTube released a trailer of that episode where Clunes is
doing (or trying to do) an American accent. She found it very amusing.

I wonder if Clunes will be back this season now that Best Medicine has
been renewed?

--
Rhino

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