Martin Clunes on Out There: 'The family we portray would be hit hard by recent budget changes'

"Those are my overalls," he says proudly. "I was wearing all my own clothes for this. And I didn’t have to go to farmer camp to learn to drive a tractor."

Sure enough, in his first TV appearance since the end of long-running drama Doc Martin, Clunes looks remarkably at home walking the fields and around the barns of a farm on the Wales-England border. But his character, Nathan, a widower bringing up his son on the homestead passed down to him, must confront external forces and people threatening his rural community, particularly local county lines drug dealers using his once-peaceful land as a hub for their operations.

Made by Buffalo Pictures, the production company Clunes runs with his wife, producer Philippa Braithwaite, Out There champions a way of life increasingly under threat and clearly chimes with its star: "It’s about territory and protection, land and boundaries and safety. And it’s very current."

Clunes has owned a farm in Dorset since 2007 and is happy to call himself a farmer – "I own cows," he smiles – but is less keen to enter the orbit inhabited by equally high-profile Jeremy Clarkson, who has, a few days before my chat with Clunes, marched in protest at proposed changes to inheritance laws for farmers. "I’m not a spokesman for anything," says the actor quickly, although he’s clearly knowledgeable and immersed in the topic.

"I’m constantly amazed by people’s lack of understanding of the countryside," he says. "There are a lot of misconceptions, prejudice, belief that 'inherited farm this, landed gentry that'. That’s not the truth. These are small farmers. Two hundred acres of ground sounds like an enormous area, but if it’s your livelihood and you’re farming it, your margins are going to be like that [he indicates a tiny gap with his thumb and forefinger]."

When I mention I’ve heard it’s the only business where you buy at retail and sell at wholesale, Clunes sighs. "Yes, it’s all economies of scale. A farm becomes a way of subsidising and supporting your outdoor life."

As for the timing of Out There, "It wasn’t made as a reaction to the changes in the budget but the family we portray in this drama would be clobbered by that. It’s a small farm, handed down through the family, and the land is really a character in the story. And it’s slightly under threat."

He may choose not to espouse any political causes, but now Clunes has the bit between his teeth and can’t stop. "I am really bugged by the national insurance on charities," he muses. "I’m involved with both our hospices in Dorset and that’s a quarter of a million [pounds] they now have to cough up in employers’ NI. Talk about margins. These places fill in the gaps in the fabric of our societies, and if they start picking around with that, the gaps will show themselves."

Any cause, local or national, would count itself fortunate to have an actor as established as Clunes in its corner. He’s been a familiar, distinctive face on our screens for more than 40 years, scoring an impressive hit rate since his breakout role of Nigel Crabtree in '80s sitcom No Place Like Home, and then of Gary Strang in the era-defining Men Behaving Badly for most of the 1990s.

More recently, he has branched out into more serious fare, winning acclaim for his tireless police officer DCI Colin Sutton in two seasons of Manhunt, telling stories of real-life investigations. Along the way there have been multiple documentaries on dogs, lions and lemurs, as well travelogues across the UK and abroad. And for nearly 20 years, until he pulled the plug in 2022, there was his hugely successful, warm-hearted grump of a Cornwall GP, Dr Martin Ellingham, or Doc Martin.

Clunes can quite reasonably claim to have no fears when it comes to typecasting. "I’m just tall, so they’re all tall characters," he says. "Repetition is what makes people believe they know you. For me, it’s always been about the next job. I’m self-employed and very expensive to run. I can’t afford to retire. There’s no masterplan."

I’m less convinced when he adds: "I’m not in a position to plan. There are no guarantees in television. It’s instant. If it’s not a hit, it won’t go again." He glances up again at the Out There poster. "It’s the same with this. No matter how good we think this is, if people don’t watch it, it’s not going to sell any advertising."

Despite his laid-back demeanour, Clunes must be keeping everything crossed that a project as close to his heart as Out There is a hit. He agrees. "We want this to run. If you watch [the final] episode six, the show’s on its knees begging for a second series. It’s got to go again! I want it to succeed because that means we got it right."

Plus, of course, success would make for a happier mood at home, even if, Clunes explains, he and Braithwaite rarely talk about work in their domestic downtime: "We have five dogs, seven horses and a daughter. Work comes fairly low on the list."

With its loyal, crusading protagonist and quietly strong supporting cast, Out There deserves to find an audience, while its sweeping, bleakly beautiful vistas lend an atmosphere redolent of the best of Scandi noir and previous Welsh crime hit Hinterland.

If TV drama has taught us to expect such country-based stories to feature solitary characters with deep passions, what does that world represent to Clunes? He gives his biggest smile of our whole time together and replies: "Nature, the rhythms of nature, seeing the leaves come on the trees and fall off the trees. It keeps you in tune with the rest of the planet rather than just being a passenger."

What effect does that have on him? Another big smile. "I’m nicer than I used to be."

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Out There will air at 9pm on Sunday 19th January on ITV1 and ITVX.

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