To most people, Caroline Catz is probably most recognisable as the love interest of Martin Clunes in Doc Martin. They can be forgiven: it has been seventeen years since it was first broadcast, a third of her life, and it has become a staple of the ITV non-soap/Simon Cowell schedules. However, she’s been on our screens a lot longer than that and indeed is more than a ‘mere’ actor.
I did watch much of the first series of Doc Martin in 2004, no doubt attracted by the comic potential of Clunes and the gorgeous Cornish setting. The lead had the grumpy maverick GP down to an art form, a sort-of Jack Dee-meets-Mr Bean, with eccentric locals queuing up a la All Creatures Great and Small in the ‘70s. What I hadn’t expected in the first episode was Caroline Catz in the role of Obvious Future Girlfriend.
It wasn’t much of a role, really. She seemed well cast as a young, attractive passionate primary schoolteacher in a fictional Cornish village, which reminded me of the first time I saw her on telly a decade earlier. In 1993 I’d enjoyed a few TV North-centred comedy-dramas written by a young bloke called Tim Firth. The following January BBC1 heralded a brand new series from the same writer called All Quiet On the Preston Front so naturally I gave it a go.
It wasn’t a massive ratings winner but I remember raving about it to anyone in earshot. The basic premise was a motley bunch of twenty-somethings in a Lancashire town who come together in the local Territorial Army brigade. Colin Buchanan and, from the second series (abbreviated to Preston Front), Alastair McGowan were notable new faces but my favourite was undoubtedly the unknown Caroline Catz as trainee teacher Dawn. Whether in army fatigues or civvies, her intelligent, slightly naïve and distinctly normal character won a lot of people over and pretty soon she was in demand for a host of ITV crime series.
Her Preston Front TA rank had been Private and in The Bill she was again on the lowest rung, only this time in the Met Police. In ’99, she was another PC but in Vice Squad. As Cheryl Hutchins, Caroline sported a neat bob for her frequent forays undercover into the seedy side of London for The Vice. I think I missed the first series but was certainly impressed by the second. It had a cracking cast, led by Ken Stott and supported by David Harewood and Marc Warren who, in retrospect, looked to be barely out of short trousers, but Ms Catz more than held her own in such exalted company.
A few years later she had been promoted to Detective Inspector for Murder in Suburbia. With Lisa Faulkner as co-star, this should have been high on my list of shows to watch but in reality I saw only a couple. It seemed to fall between two stools: not funny enough for comedy-drama and too flimsy for an engaging crime series. DCI Banks was far superior fare. Based on Peter Robinson’s excellent books and Stephen Tompkinson as the eponymous detective, the Yorkshire-set show was in my opinion of consistently high quality.
Caroline’s character, DI Helen Morton, wasn’t introduced until the second series, when the other main female actor was on maternity leave, but she remained until the axe fell in 2016. Catz’s trademark long brown hair was present and correct but she had a more severe look wearing at times some scarily dark lipstick. She probably shared a few off-set reminiscences with her screen boss as they had both starred in All Quiet on the Preston Front two decades earlier.
It hasn’t all been chasing villains for her, though. There’ve been the odd sitcom, stage production and documentary direction, while narrator work on series such as Cutting Edge and Panorama also pays the bills, especially in these pandemic days when theatres are dark and social distancing slows the filming process. In 2009, she played a stuck-up media personality guest in the tongue-in-cheek Hotel Babylon but when it comes to casting a lively Mancunian female teacher with a wide smile, there is only one candidate.
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