Doc Martin Series 10 | Interview with Dame Eileen Atkins (Ruth Ellingham)

Dame Eileen Atkins joined the regular cast in series five in 2011 to play Ruth Ellingham, aunt of the Doc, and a criminal psychiatrist. She had travelled to Portwenn for the funeral of her sister Joan, who had left her her farm in her will, and she decided to stay.

You said when you first began filming Doc Martin that you had never watched the series, but became an instant fan having watched a box set?

I had vaguely heard of Doc Martin but I had never watched it. My husband Bill and I were given a box set. We watched one and my husband said straight away said ‘I think this is lovely, absolutely charming, can we watch another one’. I thought it was lovely too. We did watch another box set, and I said I am definitely going to do this. It was a lovely surprise to find a series which I just happen to have watched.

Do you remember your arrival here and what you thought about Port Isaac?

I remember being nicely surprised about Port Isaac because a friend of mine had owned one of the houses here and told me I could stay in it any time I wanted to. My husband and I were totally hooked on the south coast of Cornwall. One night when we were staying on the south coast I suggested we went over to look at the place on the north coast. We came to Port Isaac on a very drizzly September/October evening and as we came down the hill he said ‘I don’t think we are going to like it here ‘and it did look very medieval and sombre just like any where in the drizzling rain, even the prettiest place. We drove down around the harbour and out the other side and decided we preferred the south coast.

So I was expecting not to like Port Isaac, and I was so knocked out by how pretty it was when I finally arrived to live here while I worked on Doc Martin. It is that awful thing – the sun makes all the difference in the world. But it is a remarkably pretty place.

It was enormous fun the first year I was here discovering all the little places I could walk to. Then I was a great walker, I can’t walk so far now. I was so excited by the walks and the whole tone of the village which I thought was utterly charming.

Did you become acquainted with the village and the people?

I would say the only person better known in the village than me is Ian McNeice because he knows everybody. Then I became friendly with Ian so he was my first chum on the production and he introduced me to a lot of people.

Because I don’t drive the first year I only had the the village supermarket to use. Then I used the bus. People would do double takes of me on the bus, that somehow someone on TV shouldn’t be on the bus.

I now know quite a few people in the village because every day I do a it of shopping in Port Isaac. The Co-op know me very well. I know most of the assistants by name. There is an art gallery and I got to know the couple who run that. Some times I sit with Ian when he is collecting for the RNLI.

Did you fall in love with Cornwall, as well as loving the series?

I have written to friends saying this is one of the most enjoyable jobs I have ever had. I stayed in a lovely house, with a fantastic view of Port Isaac and I could walk to my heart’s content.

I have been in love with Cornwall since I was 19 when I came here with an acting company. It did make me want to live in Cornwall.

In the mid Fifties, having just left drama school Dame Eileen joined fellow students to form a co-operative to perform plays, living in a local school in Perranporth, and then moving to a house in nearby St Agnes.

We didn’t have any money so we hitchhiked down to Cornwall. It was a very volatile, exciting time and we were quite ambitious in what plays we did. We used to take turns each day to run along the beach with a banner advertising to the holidaymakers what play we would be performing that evening, hoping it would rain so people would come in to watch, and we got them in.

Did you ever think you would move to Cornwall?

Yes, and actually my husband and I put down some money on a house there. It was a very tiny cottage with full sea views. The surveyor came back and said everything was fine about the cottage but he hadn’t been able to assess one wall because the people next door wouldn’t let him into their front garden to look at our wall.

We got a bit worried about that. So we came down to Cornwall and met the people next door. They were two fishermen, who were very nice, but they were not happy about people coming down and taking houses for second homes. I thought about it and thought ‘they are right’. It would be annoying if there was someone next door who only came to the house when they felt like a holiday. So we gave up on it. I absolutely understood why they were angry. We never found another place although we did look.

So I feel enormously lucky to have had this gift. I feel it is a total gift that I have been in Doc Martin. I have been here five lots of four months – 20 months. I have, in late life, the gift of not having to run a place. I come here and everything is laid on for me. I have a gorgeous cottage and all I have to do is work a few days. Normally I stay here totally, but this year I have gone back to London a few times. This year has been fabulous -all kinds of people have come down to see me. I have had a wildly social time. The cast and crew sang happy birthday to me when I joined them for the weekly pub quiz.

What do you remember of when you first began playing the role of Ruth Ellingham?

She was so cross at the beginning. She came down to Portwenn for the funeral of her sister Joan, She had no intention of staying in Cornwall. She was very much a London person and had a very good job she was mad about. Then it was the thing she had to deal with her sister’s farm which had been left to her, then she got to know Martin a bit because she hadn’t known Martin that well. It’s interesting that both Joan, played by Stephanie Cole, Martin and I all do have similarities, you would put us in the same family, by the way we play the parts. They don’t show their emotions easily.

Then Ruth, who is always thinking of going back to London, rented a little cottage in the village. She couldn’t stand her sister’s old farm. So she stayed and didn’t go back to London. I like to get the feeling, with my clothes, and everything, that I have never quite told myself I’ve settled in Cornwall, but I have settled.

This year is the first year, against my will I have been forced into wearing trousers for my character by the costume designer. I gave up and wore them for this last time. I have given in and Ruth is wearing trousers like every other woman in Cornwall. Up to now she has fought it by staying in her skirts as she would have done for her work in London. Her work now is more about writing thesis and books rather than meeting criminals in her job as a criminal psychiatrist.

With the new baby now for Martin and Louisa, Ruth seems to have become more involved with the family?

I think she does like it. She loves them. Elliott, who plays James Henry, is as smart as anything. I keep getting his name wrong and calling him Henry James. When I said to Martin ‘doesn’t anyone else call him Henry James by mistake ‘Martin said ‘no, only you because you read too many books when you were young’

What have been the highlights of playing the role?

I remember having an enormous bit of fun one day. I had an episode I really liked doing where Art Malik turns up and he plays my ex lover’s son and I hear that my lover has died. We take the ashes out onto a cliff top. I was truly worried about being frozen that day. My only misery here is getting freezing cold. Life would have been perfect here if it hadn’t been for how cold it can get at times.

It was a windy day, but sunny and a bit cold. The coastline is ravishing and where we were filming you couldn’t see a soul. The director, Nigel Cole, wanted a very dramatic scene when I scattered the ashes. I did it once and he said ‘no ‘I’m going to show you how to do it’. He did it and they all blew back in his face. He was such a good sport about it. We were so long with those scenes because we were helpless with laughter about not being able to throw the ashes. People often talk to me about that episode.

The other episode they talk to me about is when Ruth thinks she has Alzheimers.

What are your fondest moments or memories of the series ?

I do remember very clearly the moment when Ruth realised Art Malik was my ex lover’s son, and therefore my lover must be dead. I remember exactly where I was standing in the Doc’s surgery. It was a really significant episode for me.

If you were to take a souvenir from Port Isaac to remind you of the series what would it be. Do you have any souvenirs from your time in Cornwall.

There is an awful little bit of me that if I took a souvenir from Port Isaac I know when I got to London it wouldn’t look right, but I love the seagull who visits me here every day on my balcony, and taps on the window. I love the birds at home in London where I look out at the river. I would love a little thing of a seagull. It is strange to have this passion for water birds and then not be able to bear them coming into the house. They are so lovely to watch. I can watch the flight of the birds endlessly. I never take photographs so I don’t have photographs of the seagull to take away with me. I never have photographs in my home. It’s a silly thing. When I first started in the theatre and I went to successful actors ‘houses I thought it was outrageous that they had their bill posters on the wall and photographs everywhere and I thought if ever I do well I shall have nothing up because it is showing off, so you wouldn’t know I was an actress if you came into my house. I have always said that if you love something you remember it. Take it in and have it in your memory. But that’s because I am old fashioned because photographs are the thing now. The seagull will be in my mind forever. I can do a drawing of him. All these images are printed in my mind, the places I particularly like here. I will never forget this view, I don’t need a photo of it. I have bought some charming drawings of Port Isaac by Ian McNeice’s daughter Maisie. They will remind me of Port Isaac. I think you can tell by the book I wrote that I have a very strong memory. I have a massive imagination. I don’t take a picture, I take it in my mind. I learn a bit by how something looks. My memory really doesn’t need photographs.

What are your favourite spots/restaurants?

The Fish Kitchen on the Platt is my top favourite place. I just wish it was in London. I also love Rick Stein’s in Padstow. I was thrilled when Rick Stein opened a restaurant in Barnes and I went there several times immediately it opened. But it is just not the same if you are not in Cornwall.

What happens to Ruth in this final series?

In this tenth series I am very onto Louisa’s father who I have not met before and I am immediately suspicious of him. I think my main story is sussing him out. That has been fun because Louisa’s father is played by Ken Cranham, who I have known forever. It was lovely acting with him. I really enjoyed working with an old friend. Art Malik was also a friend so I was terribly lucky. Ken’s big TV hit was a series called Shine on Harvey Moon. There is a woman who works in the Chapel Cafe in Port Isaac and she said to me ‘I couldn’t believe it, I saw Harvey Moon in the village’. That cheered up Ken that he was recognised from Harvey Moon.

What will you miss most about being in Cornwall?

It has been highly pleasurable. It was a lovely thing that very other year I would have four months of very nice work with really lovely people. Let’s face it they just don’t cast anybody who is not going to be a decent person. You are not going to meet anybody horrible and then you just have a lovely social time as well. It really is perfect. I was talking to my friend Sian Phillips last night and she said ‘you are going to miss Cornwall ‘and I said ‘yes I am’. But of course if there was a next time I would be 90, and honestly you can’t have somebody acting at 90. So I feel they just finished for me.

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