A DARK car sweeps down the narrow, winding street of Port Isaac, the idyllic fishing village in north Cornwall and the location of successful ITV series Doc Martin.

The sound of applause and cheers fill the air as Martin Clunes arrives. It’s the kind of reception you’d expect to be reserved for George Clooney – and Clunes looks as bemused by it as anyone. Not that he’s complaining.

For it’s been quite a year for the Dorset-based actor who lives in the Beaminster area with his TV producer wife Phillipa Braithwaite.

“It’s great for any actor seeking approval, isn’t it? The fans are so nice, so on-side,” he says, when we find a quiet spot away from his adoring public. Since its debut back in 2003, this gentle show about the pompous Doc Martin who settles in the sleepy village of Port Wenn, has garnered an international fan base.

“The Americans are coming to see us now, too. Just this year, it’s really picked up a following,” says Clunes, whose rubbery features are less exaggerated in the flesh. He’s quietly spoken and talks in vowels that are more Prince Charles than Gary, his beer-swilling former alter ego in Men Behaving Badly.

But even though he is enjoying international stardom, the popular actor who was awarded an honorary degree from Bournemouth University in 2007, still finds time to support several local charities.

Not only is he patron of Julia’s House children’s hospice at Corfe Mullen and the Prince’s Trust in Bournemouth, he was also in town earlier this month for the auction of the Pride in Bournemouth lions, a public arts event which raised £75,000 for charity.

Now he is back on our screens for the fifth series of his show which picks up after the birth of the Doc’s baby.

“It’s uncomfortable because they’d [Doc Martin and on-off partner Louisa] split up. But the baby throws them together and a lot of things are up in the air and unspoken; it’s all a bit of a pickle,” he explains.

Though his character is brilliantly abrasive, socially inept and a little arrogant, Clunes reveals that ‘surgeons have told me he’s too nice’.

“It’s always hard to get it right when you’ve got a main protagonist who doesn’t like anybody and nobody likes him. But I think there’s something quite liberated about his lack of social grace.”

How will the Doc takes to fatherhood?

“He’s terribly Victorian and old-fashioned. He believes any progressive thought is American and to be frowned upon, but in secret they [he and the baby] get on very well.”

Ignoring the old show business adage that you should never work with children or animals, Clunes comments: “Oh it’s great, we’ve got loads of babies, so the minute one cries, you hand it back and get the next one.”

Looking across at the house that stands in as the show’s surgery, Clunes reveals he and his wife Philippa, with whom he runs Buffalo Pictures, the production company behind Doc Martin, considered buying that very house. Instead, they’ve kept their secluded farm in Dorset, to which he returns every weekend and where they keep the two New Forest ponies they adopted from the RSPCA back in March.

“When we first bought our house, there was some curiosity and some horror. I’ve been there 15 odd years now, so I’m not a novelty anymore. Whether I’ve been accepted or not is not for me to say, though,” he laughs.

As he approaches his 50th birthday, Clunes admits he’s mystified as to how he ended up being president of a horse society and owning a farm. He smiles, looking very much like a man who’s happy with his life. “I never saw that coming,” he laughs.