Hooked on reality

WHEN Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing airs tomorrow night, comparisons with The Trip will be inevitable.

Just like Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s show, it’s two men in late middle-age spending large amounts of time in each other’s company.

But Bob and Paul reckon their series has one crucial difference – it is real; not versions of themselves, but how they really are.

Bob says: “I watched The Trip and thought, ‘That’s not Rob and Steve’, they had no relationship whatsoever.

“It’s almost like the difference between old Top Gear and new Top Gear. With me and Paul, we were going to be like what we are. It emerged from that reality.

“What we did, you don’t see that often. It is just Paul and Bob and that’s how we speak.” Whitehouse says he barred himself from doing impersonations – almost. At a Bafta screening he said: “There is a Michael Caine impression, where he takes a breath. In. Between. Every. Word. He. Says.”

Interviewing the pair, pal and Fast Show comic Charlie Higson agreed that the series, in which they talk about their serious heart conditions while fishing in some of the loveliest places in Britain, has a very different feel. He said: “On The Trip they are obsessed with ego and status, and you two don’t have huge egos.”

Paul added: “We’re not as rich as Steve and Rob – but we are hoping to get a Saga advert out of this.”