Comedian ‘risked having a heart attack on tour’
COMEDIAN BOB Mortimer has revealed a doctor told him that he risked having a heart attack on stage had he and comedy partner Vic Reeves gone ahead with a live tour in 2015.
Middlesbrough-born Mortimer, 59, has discussed the triple heart bypass he underwent after it was discovered that “95 per cent” of his arteries were blocked.
The Shooting Stars host was due to embark on the first leg of his and Reeves’s (real name Jim Moir) 25th anniversary tour. The duo had to cancel the dates in order for Mortimer to recover from the operation.
Speaking about his health scare during an interview with
The Big Issue, Mortimer said: “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.
“Heart surgery just sounds ... it was weird, the things that would make me cry were my favourite egg cup and my cats. Four days later they were cutting me open. I was 95 per cent blocked.
“It is amazing when you see the pictures, because it is an incredibly resistant organ – if there is a gap, it will push that blood through it.”
In January Mortimer revealed that he married his partner of 22 years half an hour before undergoing surgery.
While he was recovering, he was invited by friend and fellow comedian Paul Whitehouse to go on a fishing trip. They have since made Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, which starts on BBC Two on Wednesday.