Clunes Discovers Loneliness and Isolation of Cancer Victims

Men Behaving Badly star Martin Clunes is turning away from sitcom with his next TV appearance. He's back on screen next month, playing a man who discovers he has testicular cancer, in a bittersweet drama called Losing It (ITV1, September).

It's written by former advertising executive Paul Mendelson, the creator of My Hero and May to December, and based on his own real life story. Martin plays ad copywriter Phil, a father-of-two married to Nancy (Holly Aird).

The one-off film is both funny and revealing about what happens when someone in the family has to deal with cancer.

"The drama is not maudlin or gloomy," Martin points out. "It is filled with hope and light."

Even so, he did experience some darker moments while filming radiotherapy scenes at a hospital in Bristol.

"I can't imagine what it must be like to be diagnosed with cancer, but I've had to. When you are having treatment, you are on your own, and it can be so isolating. I called a close friend of mine who survived breast cancer three or four years ago and asked her about her personal feelings about having radiotherapy. Scared and lonely about summed it up.

"Being in the radiotherapy room was harrowing. They put you under this Goldfinger machine and run out of the room. You do feel scared and lonely - and I didn't even have cancer, and the machine wasn't switched on. It was terribly lonely."

Story published in full in the Evening News