The lovable Bert Large, Portwenn plumber and disastrous entrepreneur, has endured endless mishaps over the years, but he's finally about to hang up his woolly hat for good.
Ian McNeice is still in Port Isaac when I call, he’s at his temporary home in the village, the location of Doc Martin’s fictional Portwenn.
‘I’m looking out now at an expanse of sea that goes on forever. It’s an incredible view. We will miss it dreadfully,’ he says.
It’s late July and filming is almost wrapped up for what will be the last ever Doc Martin. Ian who plays Bert Large, will be leaving Cornwall in about a week’s time, to return to his London home. He’s been living in Port Isaac, with his partner Cindy Franke since February when filming began.
It still hasn’t sunk in that this, the tenth series, will be the last Doc Martin.
‘I think everybody is sort of phased by it because it’s been going on so long. I don’t think any of us are thinking it’s really going to be over.’
‘It’s going to hit us quite hard when it actually happens.’
Ian’s character Bert has been in Doc Martin since the first series. He describes it as like being in ‘one big family’ where the actors and crew have met up every two years for two decades. Many of the characters are long running in the series, including Bert’s son, Al played by Joe Absolom. ‘He calls me Pops, we have been like father and son, and we see each other a lot.’
Joe took to Cornwall so much that he moved here with his family. As for Ian, he’s stayed in Port Isaac every other year since the beginning. ‘We treat this very much as out second home down here, so we become very friendly with the locals.’
Whereas other actors might leave in between filming slots in order to see family and children, Ian stays put. And he’s well known in the village.
The number of dog shows he opened in the first few years, ‘was hysterical’, he says, but he’s also been a kind of intermediary between the team and the locals, getting involved in local events. Recently there was an auction on the harbour to raise money for the village Christmas lights so Ian got hold of some Doc Martin items, a clapperboard, signed scripts, etc, to donate.
He carries a green plastic bucket around with him, so when fans ask for a photo, he suggests they pop a pound in for the lifeboats. From February up until the Port Isaac lifeboat service in June he raised £3,000.
Fans are never short on the ground, as crowds flock to Port Isaac. ‘You go in the village on a normal day and you find people from all over the world, Russia, the Netherlands, all countries come here, it’s like a mecca.’
Plenty come from America, where The Bert Large Lovers Group on Facebook originated. It was founded a few years ago and has around 5,000 members.
‘I got into trouble once when I said they were all people over 60,’ says Ian. There are a lot of women under the age of 60 came the retort. ‘So, I now say, ‘women of a certain age’...’
Doc Martin has undoubtedly been a huge bonus for the village businesses that rely on tourism, but as Ian notes, ‘there is the other side, which is we are a bit of a pain sometimes.
‘I think we are quite a hindrance when we are working in the village, so many trucks come down and we have to cordon people off and say to them to be quiet as were filming.
‘Have you been to Port Isaac? It is not an easy place to drive down at all. It’s so narrow. The amount of people you see trying to reverse back up. I think all the locals must laugh at us when we’re struggling to reverse back up.’
Ian sounds genuinely sad to be leaving Port Isaac. He says the opportunity for family and friends to come and stay with him and Candy, enjoying boat trips, swimming, hunting for crabs in rockpools has been ‘a fantastic experience’.
‘My son left us yesterday and just before he went, he trotted down to the bay to have a swim. It’s been a blessing for my family to come and enjoy this experience.’
‘We will definitely come back in future and stay for periods of time. This won’t be the end of us coming down to Cornwall.'
