Martin Clunes is slightly disgruntled when we speak because he’s meant to be moving his cows into a nearby field on his farm in Dorset and has to talk to me instead. But he soon cheers up, cracking jokes and waxing lyrical about his part in The Coming Of Christmas concert at Dorchester Abbey for local charity Hft .

“Yes, it slightly threw me when I found out it was actually in Oxfordshire. I thought it was in Dorchester just down the road,” he roars with laughter.

“I’m only joking,” he adds hastily, “I quite like carol concerts as long as they don’t ask me to sing. But yes they can be quite nerve-wracking because you have to get it right.” I’m surprised he has time with such a busy schedule filming the eighth and possibly last series of Doc Martin? “I’m off at the moment and loving spending time with my wife and daughter and looking after the animals. I love it here and never get bored.”

Managing to fit in a four-part series on the islands of Australia, which involved flying around paradise for months, and will be aired in the New Year, he manages to fit in other projects.

“I know it sounds idyllic but the travelogue was actually a lot of hard work, lugging all the kit around and loading the gear on and off the boats as well as a lot of travelling,” giving me a glimpse of the disgruntled Doctor Martin Ellingham, as he does. “But then I don’t like leaving home for long periods of time so split the filming in Australia up into three chunks, two weeks on and two weeks off, and my wife and daughter managed to come to Tasmania with me for half term.”

By all accounts Clunes was rescued by his second marriage to TV producer Phillipa Braithwaite, whom he met on the set of Doc Martin, after a particularly disastrous first marriage, with whom he now has a daughter Emily.

Moving down to Dorset when Emily reached school age, the Clunes have been there ever since. And while filming Doc Martin resumes in the New Year, until then he’ll be “keeping busy” down on the farm.

So did he plan to be a part-time farmer? “No, there was no plan at all. We originally lived just down the road in a little village and were always looking for a field of 2-3 acres for a pony for my daughter, and it was very hard to find somewhere. So when this place came up – 100 acres in a lovely secluded spot where you can’t see the house from the road we knew it was too good to miss.”

In other words, he bought a 100-acre farm so he could have a field for his pony? He laughs. “Well to start with we were quite happy not to have any animals, but that became rather unsatisfactory and now we have 14 horses and too many sheep, about 300 at the last count, plus cattle. We have a stockman and between us we manage it. But it’s not as busy as the lambing season which in insane so I always try to be away working for that,” he chuckles.

“I suppose it’s sort of like living the dream,” he accedes, “just not one we asked for.”

“It’s hard to make money out of it, but we try to wash our face, and seem to make it work but we then don’t have a dairy herd. Moving to Dorset from London when his daughter started going to school, he adds: “I love it and I love the horses.”

Not only is the famous actor a farmer, but he’s also passionate about Heavy Horses such as Clydesdales, “big old draught horses” and is President of the British Horse Society. Clunes therefore spends his weekends, when not filming, taking his horses to dressage competitions.

Doesn’t he get mobbed? “It’s a tiny world in which I’m quite well known,” he says modestly.”and I did make a TV programme on it.”

So when he does have to leave his beloved Dorset, it’s often in support of the many charities he helps.

“Yes I do a lot of readings even though I’m not very good at poetry. I grew up with Radio 4 in the background listening to actors wanging on reading poetry, loving the sound of their own voices, which rather put me off and as a result I’m not a great fan of the classics,” he says, bringing back memories of Men Behaving Badly which launched Clunes on to an international stage that he has scarcely left since, albeit moving from student loser to serious Cornish doctor.

To give you an idea of Martin Clunes’ current fame, the show regularly pulls in nine million viewers here, with an worldwide audience in more than 70 countries.

“Yes, sometimes I want to run away from it all, because being self-employed is a real task-master. But then I remember how lucky I am.

He brightens visibly when talking about the Hft charity he will be supporting next week at Coming of Christmas: “I met a couple while filming in Cornwall who told me it was the first holiday they had had in 24 years because they have a child with severe learning difficulties and had never been able to leave them before, and I remember realising what a massive thing that must be.

“So I became a patron, because Hft makes so much difference to people’s lives and I am so moved by how charities like Hft fill in the gaps in society to make people’s lives easier. It’s a brilliant charity. Really terrific.

“And this concert in particular is raising money to help those with learning difficulties train to be caterers so I aim to promote that and raise a little money for them at the same time. Anyway I better get on. I’ve got to move those cows,” he says, and with that he’s off, his tall frame loping across the Dorset land, leaving me with a lasting impression of having spoken to one of the few celebrities who actually live up to all expectations.

Coming of Christmas

Dorchester Abbey, Dec 8

hft.org.uk/comingofchristmas or 0117 906 1767. Proceeds to

Hft Charity in Milton

Heights, Oxon