“I’m no party pooper but would question if modern kids, who only watch YouTube, really will enjoy an immersive Doc Martin experience, in which an increasingly irate animatronic Martin Clunes shouts abuse at them as he simultaneously diagnoses rare diseases with one glance at an uncommunicative Cornish fisherman.”
And bravo Kipper Williams!
Just a note to thank all the Doc Martin fans who send me lovely messages and letters from around the world.
The irascible doctor has made me so many wonderful friends; thank you for taking the trouble to let me know you’re enjoying him and the whole Portwenn world. It really does make a difference to hear directly from the viewer.
Below is one recently received. (To the sender: since your letter is anonymous, I hope you don’t mind me sharing it. And I’m glad to tell you that – although I no longer work on the show – there is another UK series in the pipeline.)
Here’s one for the Doc Martin fans.
I noticed this trivia question on the WETA website:
If you’re nerdy enough to have bothered to track down this website, you’ll probably know that the correct answer is Doctor Sim. Doc Martin is frequently compared – unfavourably – with good old Doctor Sim, and it drives him mad.
Doctor Thomas Sim was a real doctor – our family GP in Ryde on the Isle of Wight – who saved my life in 1976. I had ruptured my spleen in an accident in the gym at school. I was x-rayed but the rupture was not diagnosed, and I was sent home. Doctor Sim was good enough to come out in the night, and recognised my symptoms immediately. You don’t live long with a ruptured spleen. I was rushed back to hospital, in the nick of time… and survived to tell the tale that is Doc Martin. Doctor Sim is gratefully remembered.
21st March, 2012
This news is on the wires today – makes me inordinately proud of the show.
The irascible doctor has made friends for me all over the world, so he will always have a special place in my heart.
I do think the Doc would approve of a Russian analogue – he’d understand the very Tolstoyian idea of civilisation as a web of lies constructed to distract people from the reality of sickness and mortality.
I don’t know what the Russian take on the show will be, but here’s my casting suggestion, half-way between Clunes and Putin.
Doc Martin to be remade in Russia
20 March, 2012 | By Michael Rosser
ITV1 drama Doc Martin is set to be adapted for audiences in Russia – part of a raft of new deals by distributor DRG.
The format of the popular drama has been optioned by Russia’s Albany Productions, an affiliate of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
It will not be the first time the UK drama, starring Martin Clunes, has been remade.
Major broadcasters including Spain’s Antena3, Germany’s ZDF and Greece’s Mega TV have each put their own spin on the show, in which a curmudgeonly big city surgeon moves to a small village and takes up residence as the local doctor.
Most recently, DRG has secured a third season format deal in France with Ego Productions for TF1 and has picked up the rights to the sixth series from the UK.
The British version, made by Buffalo Pictures in association with Homerun Productions, has been sold into more than 200 territories.
DRG has also signed several new finished programme deals with:
TV One (New Zealand)
Kanal Fem (Sweden)
TV2 (Denmark)
Vision TV (Canada)
TV Norge (Norway)It is also syndicated via APT to 46 PBS markets in the US – including 19 of the top 20 markets.