MARTIN CLUNES has a clear idea what the death of his career would look like.

"Telly loves detectives," explains the 53-year-old with a belly laugh. "I get asked at least once a year to play a detective. I just could not take myself seriously if I played any kind of copper.

"It's good to know your limits. I just couldn't go around arresting people! It would be the end, wouldn't it?"

Only, in his latest series, Arthur & George, he does "sort of" play a detective.

An adaptation of Julian Barnes' novel of the same name, the three-part series follows the real-life story of Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who in later life, pursued a notorious miscarriage of justice, whereby George, a young Anglo-Indian solicitor, was imprisoned for allegedly mutilating animals.

Admittedly, the actor - who is dapper when we meet on set, in a natty three-piece suit - would have "legged it" if anyone else had approached him to play Doyle, but Arthur & George, like his well-loved Doc Martin series, is produced by Philippa Braithwaite - his wife.

A "voracious reader", Braithwaite was convinced the book would lend itself well to TV, and with Doc Martin proving such an international success, there was "a few bob in the company coffers" to fund a script.

But with TV schedules groaning under the weight of Victorian dramas, father-of-one Clunes, who made his name as beer-swilling lout Gary in Nineties comedy Men Behaving Badly, was initially reluctant to add to the mix.

"There's so much Victoriana on telly at the moment, isn't there?" says the actor. "It's so boring. People do the same thing, over and over again."

But he believes they've taken a "fresh eye" on Victoriana with Arthur & George, and if nothing else, at least hired some new faces, instead of using the same old stars.

"Another bugbear of mine is that you see the same horse pulling every bloody carriage with the same harness [in these dramas]," adds Clunes who, as president of the British Horse Society - and who lives on a farm in Dorset, with his wife, teenage daughter Emily, four dogs and several sheep and Clydesdale horses - would, naturally, notice such things.

"We've had some fantastic horses in this [series], really lovely ones," he continues.

The series also boasts a cameo from one of his dogs - little Jack Russell, James Henry.

"He did really well! We were just sniggering about what his credits should be."

Although he concedes that a second series isn't "up to him", Clunes would be happy to star in more episodes of Arthur & George, if the chance arose. "This is really good, because it's quite hard, and it's a boot up the arse," he says, chuckling. "It reminds me what I like about my job."

Arthur & George starts on ITV on Monday, March 2