'Every town needs a Doc Martin - just don't try living with him': Caroline Catz on being half of TV’s most-loved on-off couple

Caroline Catz seems as much a part of the stunning Cornish landscape in which we are snapping her today as the seagulls that squawk above the beach at Port Isaac or the fishing boats that bob across the blue horizon. 

Although born and raised in Manchester – a place she describes as ‘all rain and pavements’ – she has become synonymous with this beautiful corner of rural England, thanks to her decade-long role as Doc Martin’s on-again, off-again partner Louisa Glasson. 

Pretty as a picture today, she has chosen her own outfits and accessories for our shoot – all of them with a kind of jaunty, nautical theme, and many from her own carefully curated collection of 70s vintage clothes (more of which later). 

The look is essentially Caroline, yet with echoes of her character Louisa, whose style, although a ‘little more floral and feminine’, is never a million miles from the actress’s own. 

‘When I’m down here filming,’ she says, ‘I’m never quite sure where Louisa ends and I begin, because there is something about this place – the landscape, the sea, the beautiful vistas as well as the character herself – that gets beneath your skin in a wonderful sort of way.’ 

Definitely not complaining, then, she describes the role as ‘the best job in the world. I love being here and I love Louisa. 

'There is no reason in the world not to do this job. It’s too good and too much fun not to,’ she says simply. 

The viewers, in their millions – and not just in the UK, but all over the world – would applaud. 

They have loved Louisa from the word go – her battle to make it work with the curmudgeonly, blood-phobic, on-the-spectrum yet strangely lovable Doctor Martin Ellingham (played, as no other actor could, by Martin Clunes) seeming as real to them as Portwenn itself. 

Although Portwenn is, of course, also fictitious. 

It’s actually Port Isaac that provides the show’s beautiful backdrop. 

Keep reading HERE at Mail Online.