bob mortimer tour 2024

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Bob Mortimer

Bob mortimer is a comedian, podcast presenter, and actor..

He is known for his work with Vic Reeves as part of their Vic and Bob comedy double act... Read More

[email protected] 020 7287 1112

[email protected] 020 7287 1112

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Emma Torrens [email protected]

Bob is known for his work with Vic Reeves as part of their Vic and Bob comedy double act, and also more recently, for his fishing on BBC Two’s critically acclaimed Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing .

Bob's debut book 'And Away...' was released in 2021 to huge critical acclaim.

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Bob Mortimer

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Before Bob Mortimer, the comic and author became Bob Mortimer, the comic and author, he was Bob Mortimer: The Cockroach King. A successful lawyer who represented tenants all across London suffering from cockroaches and other infestations in their rental units.

Mortimer didn't try his hand at comedy until his late 20s, when he met Vic Reeves – an established comic who was playing the London club circuit. Soon, they were a double act in the beloved British comedy tradition, appearing on dozens of TV shows, including variety shows and sitcoms.

These days, Bob Mortimer is also a novelist, having just released his U.S. debut. Mortimer joins the show to talk about his new book The Clementine Complex, a fun, funny mystery novel that's in bookstores now.

Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing Series 7 to Premiere in Late 2024 on BBC Two

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The TV show Gone Fishing will be returning for a new six-part series later this year, and a bumper eighth series with eight episodes in 2024. The upcoming series will feature the hosts visiting various locations such as Wales, Wiltshire, and the Scottish Borders. BBC's commissioning editor, Max Gogarty, expressed his excitement for the show's return, saying that it brings joy, catharsis, and escapism to millions of viewers each week, and they're thrilled that the hosts will be back with their dog Ted later this year. (Source: tvzoneuk.com )

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Reeves & Mortimer

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Past Events

Here are the most recent UK tour dates we had listed for Reeves & Mortimer. Were you there?

February 2020

• Tue 18 Feb Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne Theatre & Opera House An Evening With Vic & Bob Reeves & Mortimer
• Mon 17 Feb Birmingham, The Alexandra Theatre An Evening With Vic & Bob Reeves & Mortimer
• Thu 13 Feb Buxton Opera House An Evening With Vic & Bob Reeves & Mortimer
• Wed 12 Feb Leeds, City Varieties An Evening With Vic & Bob Reeves & Mortimer
• Tue 11 Feb Leeds, City Varieties An Evening With Vic & Bob Reeves & Mortimer
• Mon 10 Feb Nottingham Playhouse An Evening With Vic & Bob Reeves & Mortimer
• Fri 24 Mar London, Building Six Sir Lenny Henry, Joe Lycett, Miranda Hart, Jonathan Ross, French & Saunders, Graham Norton, Reeves & Mortimer …

December 2016

• Fri 16 Dec M&S Bank Arena Liverpool Reeves & Mortimer
• Thu 15 Dec O2 Apollo Manchester Reeves & Mortimer
• Wed 14 Dec Bristol Beacon Reeves & Mortimer
• Tue 13 Dec Sheffield City Hall and Memorial Hall Reeves & Mortimer
• Sat 10 Dec The BIC, Bournemouth Reeves & Mortimer
• Fri 9 Dec Utilita Arena Birmingham Reeves & Mortimer
• Thu 8 Dec Utilita Arena Cardiff Reeves & Mortimer
• Wed 7 Dec Plymouth Pavilions Reeves & Mortimer
• Tue 6 Dec Portsmouth Guildhall Reeves & Mortimer
• Sat 3 Dec Blackpool Winter Gardens Reeves & Mortimer
• Fri 2 Dec Nottingham, Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Reeves & Mortimer
• Thu 1 Dec Newcastle upon Tyne, O2 City Hall Newcastle Reeves & Mortimer

November 2016

• Wed 30 Nov Newcastle upon Tyne, O2 City Hall Newcastle Reeves & Mortimer
• Tue 29 Nov Glasgow, SEC Reeves & Mortimer

February 2016

• Tue 16 Feb London, Eventim Apollo Reeves & Mortimer
• Mon 15 Feb London, Eventim Apollo Reeves & Mortimer
• Sun 14 Feb Brighton Centre Reeves & Mortimer
• Sat 13 Feb Nottingham, Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Reeves & Mortimer
• Fri 12 Feb Cambridge Corn Exchange Reeves & Mortimer
• Thu 11 Feb Stoke-on-Trent, Victoria Hall Reeves & Mortimer
• Mon 8 Feb Southend-on-Sea, Cliffs Pavilion Reeves & Mortimer
• Sun 7 Feb Ipswich, Regent Theatre Reeves & Mortimer
• Sat 6 Feb New Theatre Oxford Reeves & Mortimer
• Fri 5 Feb Leicester, De Montfort Hall Reeves & Mortimer
• Thu 4 Feb Leicester, De Montfort Hall Reeves & Mortimer
• Tue 2 Feb O2 Apollo Manchester Reeves & Mortimer
• Mon 1 Feb Newcastle upon Tyne, O2 City Hall Newcastle Reeves & Mortimer

January 2016

• Sun 31 Jan Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre Reeves & Mortimer
• Sat 30 Jan Leeds, first direct arena Reeves & Mortimer

September 2012

• Sat 22 Sep London, Bloomsbury Theatre John Shuttleworth, Barbara Dickson, Heaven 17, The Mike Flowers Pops, Reverend And The Makers, Vic Reeves …

November 2009

• Tue 24 Nov Brighton & Hove, The Old Market Vic Reeves

Bob Mortimer says he is “not very healthy right now” after “terrible” year

The comedian, 64, contracted shingles last year, costing him the use of some of his muscles

Bob Mortimer has given fans an update on his medical status, noting that he is “not very healthy right now”.

Mortimer underwent triple heart bypass surgery in 2015 after it was discovered that 95 per cent of his arteries were blocked.

The comedian, 64, who rose to fame as part of a comedy double act with Vic Reeves in the ‘90s, also fell ill shortly after the filming of an episode of Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing in 2022 , forcing him to miss the following episode of the BBC2 show.

Furthermore, he confirmed in a recent interview that he has also been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, after having had the condition in his mid-20s.

And now, Mortimer has disclosed that he contracted shingles in 2023 that resulted in what he describes as “a very, very, very unhealthy year”.

In an interview in Metro , he said that the viral skin condition cost him the use of several muscles. “The muscles I’ve lost, I’ve lost,” he said. “But other ones can compensate for it, you know what I mean?”

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“You know what? It was worse than my heart period,” he added, before saying that he has a “terrible feeling” that he will no longer be able to go for runs.

In an interview with the  Big Issue in 2018, the comedian reflected on the life-changing effect of the triple bypass surgery: “My doctor told me that I would have had a heart attack on stage. He looked at my tour schedule and said I would most likely have gone down in Southampton.

“When I came home from being told I had to have heart surgery, it feels so dramatic. You think it is over.”

Gone Fishing first came about as a concept when Mortimer was recovering from the heart bypass surgery and Whitehouse, a longtime friend, cajoled him into leaving the house to come fishing with him.

The show has now run for six seasons, with a seventh season due to be released later in 2024.

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Travel Man’s Best Episodes: feat. Bob Mortimer at the E Numbers Museum and the Happiest Richard Ayoade Has Ever Been

They went, but should they have gone!? Travel Man is back with brand new episodes!

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Since 2015, there’s been no need to go on a minibreak to a cultural European destination. Richard Ayoade and Joe Lycett have gone for us. They’ve waited at airport security lines displaying their miniature toothpaste tube in a clear plastic bag. They’ve bought mystery crisps from railway vending machines. They’ve been to the museums, tried the local delicacies and gone on the sightseeing tours, so that we could stay luxuriously put.

Indeed, for a good chunk of 2020, staying put was the only option, which is when Travel Man: 48 Hours In… really came into its own. During lockdown, you could spin the globe, choose a location, load up All4 (as it was then known), and have a packed weekend there from the comfort of your sofa. All the experience of short haul travel with none of the having-to-mime-migraine-symptoms-to-a-Hungarian-pharmacist. Bliss!

Now Travel Man: 48 Hours In… is back with four new Joe Lycett-fronted episodes starting on Friday March 22 at 8.30 p.m. on Channel 4 and Channel 4.com. Joe’s guests this time around are comedians Alan Davies, Desiree Burch, Adam Buxton and Jessica Fostekew. While Davies, Burch and Fostekew are all Travel Man first-timers, this is a repeat visit for Adam Buxton, who also went with Richard Ayoade to Lisbon back in 2016.

Respectively, the new travel guests are being taken to Italy’s Trieste, Finland’s Rovaniemi, Czechia’s Prague, and the Canary Island of Lanzarote. Expect a visit to the wind museum, scenes of eating sausages out of skulls, volcanic wine and some sleigh-riding (not necessarily in that order).

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To celebrate the show’s return, let’s salute some of its most entertaining trips from previous series.

10. Hamburg with Bob Mortimer

Adding “…with Bob Mortimer ” to anything makes it better. (Try it. The One Show… With Bob Mortimer. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire… With Bob Mortimer. Year 10 Parents’ Evening… With Bob Mortimer.) That’s definitely the case on this 48-hour stint in Hamburg, the high point of which has to be the visit to the German Food Additives Museum. It starts off niche, and just gets more niche from there as Mortimer encourages Ayoade to ingest out-of-date E numbers. A solid best-of list entry.

9. Amsterdam with Joe Lycett

Here’s the point at which Travel Man ’s producers must have scribbled down the note ‘ Joe Lycett – new host if Richard leaves?’ The two have more in common than you may think – they’re both sardonic clothes horses who run on irony – but while Ayoade’s persona leaves little room to express genuine delight, Lycett is a joy machine. We see it here when he’s confronted by a Dutch street organ that plays Wham. Immediately, he starts to jig, hands held aloft screaming “I feel so alive!”, while Ayoade nods along barely perceptibly. A strong audition for the main part.

8. Moscow with Greg Davies

Worthy of celebration solely for the local outfit Greg Davies wears at the traditional steam bath: a kind of toga worn with – as the Taskmaster describes it – a hat that makes him look like a sinister children’s character. Add to the outfit the ‘being whipped by two men using birch branches’ treatment that Davies volunteers to undergo, and we are entertained. See also: space food.

7. Split with Aisling Bea

This is Aisling Bea’s second time as a guest on the show and both are good fun, but this pips the other because it features what is officially the most adorable Travel Man sequence of all time: Bea and Joe Lycett walking extremely sweet rescue dogs from a local animal shelter along a dedicated dog beach. As Lycett puts it, “it’s the cutest day I’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot.” If a tiny puppy stand-up paddle-boarding doesn’t do it for you, then there’s also strudel-rolling, a fish cookery class, and a museum of frog taxidermy that genuinely makes you worry for humanity. Clearly mates who get on, these two are great company.

6. Copenhagen with Noel Fielding

The happiest Goth on Earth in the happiest place on Earth? That’s what you get with Noel Fielding in the Danish capital. The Mighty Boosh star giggles his way through open sandwiches, bakery windows, a beer museum and a tiny rollercoaster. They both love the fairground, and both appear to provoke genuine antipathy from their cycling tour leader Mike the Bike (he doesn’t like trouble), who makes every effort to ditch them mid-tour. The chemistry is good, the mood is… as relaxed as Richard Ayoade appears to get (key quote from Fielding: “I thought this was going to be a holiday, not one of your weird, anally retentive fright-fests.”) And they’ll always have Galoppen.

5. Berlin with Roisin Conaty

In which: they travel in a jazz lift, very much almost die on the road in what was voted the World’s Worst Car of 1975, improvise a blues jam session, and go to a bowling alley. Not a bowling alley but a kegelbahen, where Richard Ayoade appears to reveal genuine anger and a surprisingly intense competitive streak (plus a serviceable Daniel Day Lewis impersonation) when he refuses to leave until he gets a strike.

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Comedian, writer and actor Roisin Conaty makes an excellent audience for Ayoade’s patter, awkward Kula Shaker jokes, and the break’s Cold War theme in general. He’s great, she’s great, and it just works.

4. Hong Kong with Jon Hamm

An extended-length Christmas special, this is a joy of an hour. Watch as the former star of Mad Men and the former host of The Crystal Maze take a ludicrously short journey in a Rolls Royce, have their portraits ripped out of paper by an artist named “Uncle Man”, and get a foot massage – or, as Ayoade describes it, “an onslaught of unparalleled brutality”. (Squirming and grimacing under the touch of his masseur and telling him to stay the heck away is as aggressive as you’ll see the man). The best bit? When they get measured for dandy bespoke suits with which they are clearly – and rightly – overjoyed.

3. Ibiza with Jessica Knappett

Companionable banter is all very well, but sometimes it’s fun to witness a clash of personalities so extreme you wonder if it’ll end in violence. And that clash isn’t just Ayoade (sardonic, reserved) vs Knappett (wahey-the-lads! ‘BEEFA), but Ayoade vs Ibiza itself. Put simply, the party island/hippy hangout is his nightmare, and this episode features genuine appeals to camera for rescue. From what? From a gong bath, a surfing machine, the hotel where Wham’s Club Tropicana video was filmed, and from a hotel manager who insists on taking them to a place “where membership is a smiling face.” Despite Knappett’s appeals for Ayoade to have an open mind and go with the flow, his mind remains resolutely closed and stressed, and it’s quite a lot of fun to watch.

2. Miami with Rhod Gilbert

There’s no personality clash here. Ayoade and Gilbert are like two complementary grape varieties blended into the same refreshingly dry wine. It’s a wine that you’d think would be too acerbic for Miami’s brand of relaxed Cuban cool, but you’d be wrong. Humidity aside, they both have a great time on the Florida coast. They eat crab meat lollipops that cause Ayoade to break out in a spontaneous smile, and which Gilbert describes as the most amazing meal he’s ever had in his life. They wear crab bibs, are rubbish at beach yoga, nervous of alligators, live it up at a domino game and sip drink thick, sweet coffee and freshly squeezed juice you feel like you can taste. A beautiful combination.

1. Vienna with Chris O’Dowd

The best Travel Man episodes are the ones where chemistry between host and guest really chimes, and here, it’s unimprovable. This trip to Vienna with his The IT Crowd co-star Chris O’Dowd is the happiest Richard Ayoade has ever looked on screen – possibly the happiest he’s ever been in life? Perhaps that’s down to the relief of not having been the one to have accidentally smashed a snow globe in Vienna’s national snow globe museum (O’Dowd is now banned from Austria). Or perhaps he’s just relaxed, having fun and enjoying making his pal laugh over partially fermented grape juice and cheesy sausage. They eat apple strudel, drive hotrods, explore the sewers and ride a Ferris wheel as part of a locations tour for The Third Man , and generally have a lovely, lovely time.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Dublin with Mawaan Rizwan who is cute as a button and really did not enjoy wild swimming.

Milan with Morgana Robinson whose superior pasta-making skills leave Ayoade humiliated.

Iceland with Bill Bailey for boiling eggs in a geyser, the Icelandic punk jam and the hot tub hats.

Stockholm with Sally Phillips for Ayoade’s obvious discomfort and Phillips’ obvious joy at the ABBA museum.

Porto with Nish Kumar for Nish’s excitement about his religious wax buttocks.

Dubrovnik with Stephen Merchant for them going on the Game of Thrones locations tour without having seen Game of Thrones .

Travel Man: 48 Hours In… airs on Fridays at 8.30pm on Channel 4. All episodes are available to stream in the UK on Channel4.com . Series one to seven are available to stream on Plex and Prime Video in the US.

Louisa Mellor | @Louisa_Mellor

Louisa Mellor is the Den of Geek UK TV Editor. She has written about TV, film and books for Den of Geek since 2010, and for…

Inside Bob Mortimer's life from knifepoint mugging, heartbreaking loss to health struggles and quirky habit

Best known for his shows with Vic Reeves and TV series Gone Fishing, the 63-year-old has not always worked as a comedian

• 05:00, 11 MAR 2023
• Updated 06:30, 11 MAR 2023

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Comedian Bob Mortimer is a big name in the industry.

The 63-year-old, who grew up in Middlesbrough, is best known for being one half of Vic and Bob double act and starring in programmes such as Shooting Stars, House of Fools, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. More recently, he also acquired a loyal fanbase for the Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing series with Paul Whitehouse.

In 2015, he was forced to cancel the first leg of the 25 Years of Reeves and Mortimer tour due to heart surgery. Luckily everything went well for Bob, who used to put 17 spoons of sugar in his tea, and they resumed their tour 12 weeks later.

Read more: Dave Myers gives health and cancer update as Hairy Bikers star forced to 'learn how to walk again'

Talking about the opening night at the O2 Arena in Leeds, Bob said he started to panic when his heart monitor on his wrist started climbing up before he even set foot on stage. However the show went well, the comedy duo ad-libbing about Mortimer’s heart monitor – and he’s never looked back.

He told PA at the time: “When I went out on that stage at Leeds when my wristband was telling me not to, that was my recovery over because then I realised that I’m probably stronger than I was before the operation. I thank the audience for giving us a good cheer to get us out there.”

Below we take a look at Bob Mortimer's life, his wedding 30 minutes before he had surgery and his quirky habit that he's unwilling to give up.

Rise to fame

Before becoming famous, Middlesbrough-born Bob worked as a solicitor in London where he was mugged at knifepoint by one of his clients. Luckily, when his client recognised Bob, he stopped and apologised.

Bob continued to represent him for many years. While in London, Bob stopped by the Goldsmith's Tavern in New Cross one evening in 1986 where he saw comedian Vic Reeves perform.

Bob enjoyed the act and went up to Vic after his show. Hitting it off, the two started working on material together and became good friends.

They also formed a band called the Potter's Wheel. Not long after, Bob started being part of the show which was titled Vic Reeves Big Night Out.

Due to the popularity of the show, the pair had to relocate to the Albany Empire in Deptford before making their TV debut in 1989. More projects followed such as The Weekenders, Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer and Catterick.

More recently, Bob featured in Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing with Paul Whitehouse and on panel shows such as Would I Lie to You? and Taskmaster.

Dad's tragic death

Bob's father, a biscuit salesman died in a car crash when Bob was just seven. During an interview with the BBC, he previously said it was a "defining moment of my life".

He told the broadcaster: "I just remember coming back home, being ushered away by policemen, not knowing what was happening and then a couple of weeks later being told that my dad had died… and then crying and being very sad about it, then kind of forgetting about it really and thinking that it hadn’t affected me at all. But then, later in my life [I realised] it was probably the defining moment of my life, it’s defined my personality.”

At around the same time, Bob also accidentally burnt down his family's home with a stray firework.

Poor health and triple heart bypass

In 2015, just when Bob was about to go on a Reeves and Mortimer tour, he started worrying about his constant tiredness as well as the sharp pain he felt behind his left ribcage. When went to his GP for a pre-tour check, he was immediately referred to a cardiologist and underwent open triple heart bypass surgery three days later.

He told PA: “Looking back on it, I was sleeping every afternoon, I was breathless when I went to the top of the stairs or if I played football with my sons I couldn’t last very long. I just put it down to my age.”

His consultant told him that some of his arteries were between 95 to 98 per cent blocked and that if he had gone on tour, he would have probably died on stage. Bob, who has also been suffering from rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, admitted the surgery scared him and that he was worried it would change his life.

He said: “I don’t suppose I thought I was going to die, although they give you the warning that everyone gets before an operation. But I just didn’t think life was ever going to be the same again and you start having regrets of ‘I’m never going to be able to do that’.

"I convinced myself I was going to be some kind of vegetable staring out of the window. The reason I carp on about it now – and I get sick of hearing myself talking about the heart thing – is that when I went through it I felt very ignorant about it."

Marriage to his girlfriend of 22 years

Before his hospital appointment, Bob and girlfriend Lisa Matthews rushed to a registry office to tie the knot. In an interview with the Guardian, Bob said he cried during the ceremony.

He said: "I got married at a registry office, at 9 o’clock in the morning, and was crying during the ceremony. I had to be at hospital at 10.30 for my heart op, so we had time to go for a great big cafe fry-up, meant to be my last, although it hasn’t been, if truth be known.

"When I arrived at the hospital the nurses presented me with a big chocolate cake as a wedding present. I thought it a little odd on a heart ward, but my old pipes were about to go, so there was no point being kind to them."

The couple have two sons together, Harry and Tom.

Quirky habit

The dad-of-two revealed that he still takes some "pocket meat" with him whenever he leaves the house. This can range from a scotch egg to pork pie and sausage rolls.

He previously shared on social media that he also quite likes Sainsbury's sliced corned beef.

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‘Gone Fishing’ stars Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse on their new adventures!

Gone Fishing stars Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse bring us more tales of fishing, friendship and Ted the dog!

Gone Fishing is back for a fourth series!

In 2018 Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse launched their fishing and friendship travelogue, Gone Fishing . It immediately captured the imagination of viewers with its combination of beautiful rural settings and gentle, good-humoured conversations. 

Now, four years down the line, the lifelong friends are back with another outing of BBC2’s Sunday night hit

We caught up with Bob Mortimer, 62, and Paul Whitehouse, 63, to find out more about the new six-part series…

Gone Fishing. When and where is it on?

Series 4 of Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing is made up of six episodes and starts on Sunday 28 August 2021 at 8pm on BBC2. 

It will be available on BBC iPlayer afterwards. 

Congrats on more Gone Fishing. Are you surprised to have reached series four?

Bob Mortimer: "In TV it’s always a surprise. Maybe this is what we’ll be remembered for, rather than the stuff we actually put a bit of effort into!" Paul Whitehouse: "We’ve done more series of Gone Fishing than I did of The Fast Show. We only did three series and a few specials of that. It’s strange to think that. This is very different to anything we did before. It has a bit of depth to it, or seems to! And we’ve got the backdrop of the great British countryside to fall back on."

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Bob: "And Ted the dog!"

Ted’s looking forward to seeing you on the new series of Gone Fishing … starts Sunday 8pm BBC2 …Although he didn’t make it up to Uist for ep1#teddontfly pic.twitter.com/0ULO2MT9UV August 25, 2021

Is Ted back then?

Bob: "Yeah, we’ve allowed Ted in a bit more this time - people seem to enjoy him. He’s always mucking about. He doesn’t like Paul much…"

Paul: "He doesn’t really. I feel slightly gutted because I’m a bit of a dog whisperer. I think I’m really down with the canines, but Ted’s ambivalent towards me. He’s like a cat. He pops in, has a little look, wanders off, comes back! But we like him for that; his independent spirit."

The series opens in North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. Was it breathtaking?

Bob: "North Uist is elemental, rugged, dramatic. A real adventure…"

Paul: "We had an intense [fishing] session on a little channel. The landscape was all seaweed, so you know at another time of day that it’s a flooded sea lock, yet when the tide is out it becomes a place where the sea trout run up. It felt very lonely in a place that had been fished like that for centuries. It was something special. Also, Bob does the slowest walk over some rocks…"

Bob: [Laughing] "I could see that they wanted me to fall. And I was so determined not to, because they were all waiting for it!"

Where else do you go during the series?

Paul: "In episode two we go to Burghley House [a 16th Century estate in Lincolnshire]. We make sure we keep one eye on accessibility for people, but Burghley was a slight exception because that lake doesn’t get fished very often. But we can’t be too elitist, so we go to places where anyone can come here."

Bob: "Burghley was nice. The Lakes [episode three] is my favourite. We met my old school friend, who I used to fish with there. The Norfolk Broads [episode four] had a nice sort-of 1970s feel. We’ve stayed in some lovely places, as achingly beautiful as Burghley and the Lakes or as rugged as Wales [episode five]. The show’s the same every week so that’s the only thing we can control, really! Contrasting locations bring out different conversations as well."

Paul: "Also the fish that live in one part of the world don’t exist in others. We went to the River Severn too and met up with Charlie Cooper from This Country, because he lives down that way. He’s absolutely passionate about fishing. More so than us, ain’t he Bob?"

Bob: "He has that youthful intensity!"

• Check out our guide to Series 4 of Gone Fishing

What has been your best catch this series?

Paul: "It was lovely to get those sea trout from Uist, they’re a special fish. I catch a beautiful tench in Burghley, it’s a cracker. A golden, beautiful creature and very big but, Bob, take it away…"

Bob: "I caught a minnow in Wales and we’re pretty sure it’s the biggest minnow ever caught in these isles. We didn’t weigh it or measure it but we’ve got a picture of it."  

Is there anywhere you’d like to go for the fifth series of Gone Fishing?

Paul: "I’d like to do a bit more sea fishing, Bob."

Bob: "Ahh, interesting. Is it because you’d like to see me sick on a boat?"

Paul: [Laughing] "Well, I'm very happy to do it from the bank. We did a bit recently, but it wasn't very successful."

Bob: "I would like to get English salmon, because they're beginning to think they don't exist."

Paul: "There's not many..."

Do you worry about the future of British waterways?

Paul: "Actually, we mention it on the River Severn when we meet Charlie because there’d been a lot of heavy rain. When there’s a heavy flood agricultural pollution - all the chemicals and fertilisers used in the fields - run off into the rivers and washes these chemicals straight in. At best it sickens the river. At worst, it de-oxygenises the river, causing the death of the invertebrate life that all the fish and birds feed on. It's a bit difficult for us to talk at length about those kinds of things on the show - it’s about showcasing the beauty of the place - but it's a real issue."

Bob: "When I first discovered the Wye with you Paul, I was gobsmacked. It’s paradise. Then to find out just three or four years later that it's dying… You trust that something's being done, there are some guardians of it, but there’s nobody who seems to want to do anything about it. We said on the show, the sad thing is something will be done when it is dead, when there’s no oxygen left in it..."

Paul: "The very people who should be looking after our waterways, the water companies, are the worst offenders - they discharge raw sewage. It’s starting to get on the agenda - Feargal Sharkey [best-known as the lead singer of The Undertones ] is a lone voice. He's great. But we should weigh in a bit more, Bob and I. Talking to you about the show is the exact place we should be discussing this. Take a river like the Wye. It's one of our most beautiful rivers and it’s dying a death. It seems extraordinary, that we can all just carry on with these precious places dying around us. Nobody is for pollution, yet we all allow it to happen on our doorsteps."

Is there anything you’d like to feature more of in the show?

Paul: "Often when we're looking at edits, I wish we talked less. Can we have a bit more silence, just the two of us sitting and let the places speak for themselves? 

"Water has an extraordinary quality when you're sat next to it. Gradually your mindset changes. Sometimes we should shut up, shouldn’t we Bob? But one of us can't bloody help saying something!"

Bob: "That’s the showoff in us! We just drone on. When it becomes too dull the editor cuts to a swan."

The new six-part series of Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing airs on Sunday 28 August 2021 at 8pm on BBC2 and is available in BBC iPlayer afterwards. 

With twenty years of experience as an entertainment journalist, Elaine writes for What’s on TV, TV Times, TV & Satellite Week and www.whattowatch.com covering a variety of programs from gardening and wildlife to documentaries and drama.

As well as active involvement in the WTW family’s social media accounts, she has been known to get chatty on the red carpet and wander into the odd podcast. 

After a day of previewing TV, writing about TV and interviewing TV stars, Elaine likes nothing than to relax… by watching TV.

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Bob Mortimer's new book to be called The Long Shoe

'About a bloke who's wife leaves him, but maybe she's been taken'

Bob Mortimer has revealed that his second novel will be a mystery, provisionally titled The Long Shoe.

The comic told The One Show last night that he only had 20 pages left to write on the follow-up to his debut, The Satsuma Complex.

He said the new book was ‘about a bloke who's wife leaves him, but maybe she's been taken, he's got to find out. On the way he utilises a very long shoe to solve the mystery. It's a great book.’

Incredulous fellow guest Greg Davies asked: ‘Have you written it Bob? It sounds like you're making it up’, to which Mortimer replied: ‘Honestly!’

Mortimer had previously told Kathy Burke that the new book would not feature Gary Thorn, the frustrated legal assistant at the heart of his first book, who was loosely based on his early life.

Speaking on Burke’s Where There's A Will, There's A Wake podcast he said: ‘I thought if I did the same character, I'll just write the same book, so I thought, you know, go do something different.’

He last month revealed that the first book was being retitled The Clementine Complex for the American market, where it is being released on Tuesday. Satusmas tend to be called satsuma tangerines in the US, where they are less common than in the UK.

No publication date has yet been announced for The Long Shoe, which will be released by Simon & Schuster.

The Satsuma Complex came out last year following the success of his memoirs, And Away…

Mortimer was onThe One Show with Paul Whitehouse to talk about the return of Gone Fishing to BBC Two on Sunday. The pair said that during the filming of the the sixth series they saw a ghost in Dumfries, setting up motion detectors to try to capture it.

Gone Fishing returns Sunday 3rd September. The memory ofTed's birthday party in ep1 will haunt Whitehouse forever. pic.twitter.com/5qXojxUs1S — Bob Mortimer (@RealBobMortimer) August 25, 2023

Published: 2 Sep 2023

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Daley Thompson becomes the undisputed king of the decathlon at Moscow 1980

The favourite going into the Moscow Games, the British decathlete delivered a series of top-level performances 39 years ago, on 26 and 27 July 1980, to win his first Olympic title. In the years that followed, he took gold at the European and World Championships and the Commonwealth Games, before retaining his Olympic title at Los Angeles 1984, setting a world record that would last for eight years. He is one of the greatest champions in the combined event’s history, which stretches back over a century.

In July 1904, at the Games of the III Olympiad in St Louis, 35-year-old British/Irish athlete Thomas Kiely won the all-around competition. This comprised 10 events (100-yard dash, shot put, high jump, 880-yard walk, hammer throw, pole vault, 120-yard hurdles, 56-pound weight throw, long jump and one-mile run) and was the precursor to the Olympic decathlon, even though these athletics events were listed as part of the gymnastics programme at the St Louis Games. The first real decathlon competition was won by the USA’s Jim Thorpe in Stockholm in 1912 , and the history of the discipline continued to be written, albeit with no British contribution. For 76 years, Great Britain waited for a successor to Kiely.

In the mid-1970s, a young sixth-form student from Notting Hill, a suburb of London, was beginning to demonstrate a talent for sprint and jump events. Daley Thompson, born on 30 July 1958 to a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother, was spotted by coach Bob Mortimer, who suggested that he take up the decathlon. “Bob suggested the decathlon. I’d never done six of the events before.” A young Thompson took part in his first decathlon in 1975 in Wales, and won. “At the end of the first day, I was thinking, I could be the best at this. It was all Bob’s idea. My great strength is that I’m lucky. Things fall into place for me,” he said.

Thompson’s meteoric rise was such that he was named in the Team GB squad to compete in his first Olympic Games at the age of 18, in Montreal in 1976. He finished 18th, in a competition won by the USA’s Bruce Jenner. But that was just the start. Thompson won the European Athletics Junior Championships in 1977, before claiming his first Commonwealth Games title the following year in Edmonton. That same year, in 1978, he finished second to the Soviet Union’s Aleksandr Grebenyuk in the European Athletics Championships in Prague. That was the last decathlon he would fail to win for nine years!

Tour de force at Moscow 1980

At the start of the Olympic year of 1980, Thompson set his first world record in Götzis, on 18 May, with a total of 8,648 points – a record that would be beaten a month later by West Germany’s Guido Kratschmer (8,667 points). Kratschmer and his compatriot Jürgen Hingsen would become two of the British champion’s greatest rivals throughout his career, although neither of them would ever beat him in competition, and West Germany did not take part in the Moscow Games due to the boycott initiated by the USA.

Thompson was primed and ready for glory in the Olympic Stadium in Moscow on 26 July 1980. He was still only 21, but was the overwhelming favourite for the decathlon. The competition began with the 100m, and Thompson got off to a flying start, claiming a comfortable victory in 10.61 seconds. He also dominated in the long jump, sealing the win with a jump of 8.00m on his second attempt, and came out on top in the shot put with a distance of 15.18m. In the 400m, he completed a rapid first lap before fading slightly towards the end, but still recorded the best time – 48.01 seconds. On the first day of competition, Thompson had won four events out of five (having come second in the high jump with 2.08m), racked up 4,542 points and built up a healthy lead. He was very much on course for a world record.

The following day, on 27 July, cold, rainy conditions affected the British decathlete’s performances, but he still managed to maintain a high standard: 14.47 seconds in the 100m hurdles; 42.24m in the discus; 4.70m in the pole vault, in which he cleared the bar by some margin with his fist raised in the air; then an excellent 64.16m in the javelin. Heading into the final event, the 1,500m, his points lead was so substantial that his nearest rivals, the Soviet Union’s Yuri Kutsenko and Sergei Zhelanov, needed to beat him by more than 50 seconds. Mission impossible. Thompson eased his way through the race, finishing last with a time of 4:39.90, and comfortably won his first Olympic title with a total of 8,495 points, ahead of Kutsenko (8,331 points) and Zhelanov (8,135 points).

Holder of all titles, second Olympic gold at Los Angeles 1984

Concentrating on his strongest events – the sprint and jump events – in which he was far ahead of his rivals, Thompson twice set a new world record (8,730 points on 23 September 1982 in Götzis, then 8,774 points on 8 September 1983 in Athens). Having become European champion in 1982 in Athens, retained his Commonwealth Games title the same year in Brisbane and taken gold in Helsinki in the first-ever IAAF World Championships in 1983, Thompson simultaneously held all the international titles, and then defended his Olympic gold at Los Angeles 1984. Speaking about his great rival Hingsen, who had beaten his world record, he said: “There are only two ways he is going to take a gold medal home: he’ll have to steal mine or win another event.”

On 8 and 9 August at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the battle with Hingsen was intense, but Thompson dominated from start to finish. He was leading by 210 points after the javelin and was in a position to coast through the 1,500m to become only the second decathlete, after Bob Mathias (1948 and 1952), to retain his Olympic title. In addition, his initial score of 8,798 points was revised upwards the following year when the new scoring tables were introduced, taking his tally to 8,847 points – a world record that would stand until 1992, when the USA’s Dan O'Brien reached 8,891 points.

A dearth of successors

The greatest British decathlete of all time, and one of the best in history from any nation, secured his third Commonwealth Games title in 1986, before finally experiencing defeat, at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, where he finished ninth. He came fourth in his final Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988 , and retired from sport in 1992.

Very few decathletes have reached the levels of consistency and success set by Thompson. There are some, however: O'Brien, a triple world champion (1991, 1993 and 1995) and Olympic champion at Atlanta 1996 ; the Czech Republic’s Roman Šebrle, the first man to achieve more than 9,000 points, silver medallist at Sydney 2000, gold medallist at Athens 2004 and world champion in 2007; and the USA’s Ashton Eaton, the only man since Thompson to win two Olympic titles (2012 and 2016), a two-time world champion (2013 and 2015) and world record holder several times. Without a doubt, Thompson more than holds his own in the list of the greatest ever combined event champions.

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