Big-eared Martin
Clunes rode to fame in the comedy Men
Behaving Badly.
He is equally likely to turn up in a sketch comedy show (typically with
former co-star Harry Enfield) or a drama such as Demob
where he played a gay cabaret entertainer alongside Griff Rhys-Jones.
His
appearances include: a villain in a 1983 Doctor Who
episode ("Snakedance"),
Gone
To The Dogs, Chiller,
An
Evening With Gary Lineker (along with Badly
co-star Caroline
Quentin), the "Dancing Queen" episode of Rik Mayall
Presents, and Over
Here. He also
narrates the children's program Rottentrolls. In
1994 he directed
and starred in Staggered.
He made
a cameo appearance as a bedridden patient in the Channel 5 comedy Hospital!
In 1998 he appeared in the TV movie adaption of Tim Firth's stageplay Neville's
Island, where he played an executive who hasn't
coped with the
death of his wife yet. In Touch
and Go,
he starred as a husband who discovers the "swingers" scene. In 1999 he
directed and starred in the comedy TV movie Hunting
Venus, and was a supporting actor in the movie
"Saving Grace."
In 2000 he starred in the TV movie Sex
'n Death
as an over-the-top television host, and the mini-series Dirty
Tricks. In 2002 he played the title character in
the remake of
Goodbye
Mr. Chips, as well as 1940s serial killer John Haigh in
A
Is For Acid. In 2003 he starred in the romantic
drama series William
& Mary as an undertaker in love with a
midwife, and in the
comic TV movie The Booze
Cruise. In 2004
his TV appearances included the children's series Fungus
The Bogeyman, Trapped,
and the
lead in Doc Martin
as an acerbic
physician. In 2008 he starred in the TV Movie The Man Who Lost His Head,
a comedy set in New Zealand. In 2009 he starred in a remake of Reggie Perrin.
Robert
Lindsay's first TV hit was the 1970s BBC comedy Citizen Smith
where
he starred as Wolfie Smith, a member of the "Tooting Popular Front,"
and
would-be revolutionary. He has since specialized in playing offbeat
characters,
usually in Alan Bleasdale productions. One of his most famous is GBH,
a 1991 Channel Four production where he played Michael Murray, the
increasingly
unstable leader of a city council, full of nervous tics. It was
impossible
to take your eyes off the screen when Lindsay appeared. He returned to
situation comedy with two seasons of Nightingales,
a bizarre series about night watchmen (just an example: whenever
anybody
asked, "Is anybody here?" The response was a lilting, "Nobody here but
us chickens," complete with flapping arms). All his character dreamed
of
was getting promoted to a better position, but he was continually
thwarted
in his efforts. This obscure, clever show deserves screening in the
United
States. In 1993's Genghis
Cohn, Lindsay
played a German chief of police with a Nazi past. When one of his
victims
comes back to haunt him (and of course only Lindsay can see him), the
revenge
he wreaks on Lindsay is both delicious and fitting.
The
Wimbledon Poisoner is a comedy/drama about a man
driven to kill
his wife, only to succeed in wiping out most of his neighbors instead.
In 1995, he reteamed with Bleasdale for Jake's
Progress a meandering drama with Lindsay as a
well-intentioned
father who lets events get away from him. In 1996 he starred in a
comedy
pilot called The Office
where on an important
day he manages to lose all his clothes in his bosses office and run
around
naked for most of the episode trying to cover it up. In October 1996 he
was appearing on stage in the West End of London in "Oliver." He was
reunited
with frequent co-star Julie Walters in Brazen
Hussies as part of the BBC's "Wicked Women" series
where he played
a male stripper. In the fact-based drama Goodbye
My Love he played right-to-life advocate Derek
Humphry. In 1997
he appeared in the movie "Fierce Creatures" along with John Cleese and
Jamie Lee Curtis. In the Hornblower
TV Movies he appears as Captain Pellew. In 1998 he appeared in the TV
movie
Remember
Me? as man on the run who disrupts a suburban
household. In 1999
he appeared in Bleasdale's adaptation of Oliver Twist.
He returned
to sitcom life in 2000 as a demented dentist in My
Family. In 2006 he appeared in two back-to-back
Stephen Poliakoff dramas, Gideon's Daughter
and Friends and Crocodiles.
In 2007 he played a futuristic Tony Blair facing war-crimes
in The Trial of Tony Blair.
In 2011 he played the half-mad director of MI5 in Sky1's comedy Spy. Visit his official
website.
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