Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
YOU’LL BE HOOKED
Bob Mortimer credits his recovery after heart surgery to fishing trips with pal Paul Whitehouse. Now they’ve turned their expeditions into a strangely addictive television series
Old pals Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse on their very funny – and poignant – new series about fishing
As concepts go, it doesn’t sound riveting – a TV show featur ing two comics fishing in various locations while musing on heart disease, death and food. But Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing really gets you hooked.
One for fans of Detectorists and The Trip, the gentle comic series is unscripted and the laughs depend on the genuinely funny bones of old friends Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer. And funny it is, despite being forged when the two were both at a low ebb.
The idea came about while keen fisherman Paul Whitehouse, who is best known for The Fast Show and his many comedy appearances with Harry Enfield, was trying to get Bob, of Vic and Bob fame, to leave the house following shock heart surgery in 2015.
‘I had triple heart bypass surgery,’ recalls Bob, who had the operation just four days after going to see the doctor for what he thought was a chest cold. He was so ill that he married his partner of 22 years, Lisa Matthews, on the morning of the operation, fearing he’d die. ‘After my operation I just retreated to my house. I didn’t feel safe. When I look back, I was hiding from the world. You can get into a malaise when you have an operation like that. You feel very vulnerable; you have a big cut across your chest and you worry it’s going to split open.
‘But Paul, bless him, kept phoning me and asking me to go fishing. That’s when it started, him dragging me out to engage in the world again.’
Paul has also suffered from heart disease, with three stents inserted into his arteries, and knew the beneficial effects of just getting out of the house.
‘Paul is incredibly kind-hearted and very funny,’ says Bob. ‘I tried resisting him but it got to the point of absolute rudeness. And so we went fishing and it was a revelation. It was the first time I’d been out with a friend for five or six months. There’s something very peaceful about fishing. It’s a kind of meditation, a rest from what is going on in the rest of your life.
‘You can be staring at a line for hours and not realise time is passing.’
After a few sessions, the pair wondered if there could be mileage in a television show about their travels to favourite fishing haunts around the country. And so the BBC2 series was born. ‘It’s a strange show,’ admits Bob. ‘I don’t know really how to describe it.
‘There’s no storyline, it’s very gentle. It’s poignant but funny. We’ve been friends for a long time but it’s that modern form of friendship where you just catch up with each other and don’t do stuff that real friends do. It was a perfect chance to explore what friendship is like when you’re nearly 60.’
In the six-part series, the two travel around the country, casting out their lines. They search for tench and roach in Norfolk, barbel in Hay- on-Wye, rainbow trout in Derbyshire, sea trout in Dorset and pike in Hampshire.
‘I was gobsmacked at how beautiful England is,’ says Bob. ‘We went fly fishing in Monsal Dale in Derby- shire and it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth, absolutely extraordinary. Travelling to beautiful places is what comes with angling, you get to go to places you’ve never been before and become part of the countryside. I even saw a kingfisher and I’ve wanted to do that all my life.
‘Fishing in the sea was less fun. It was cold and extremely choppy, and I was very, very seasick.’
In each episode, while Paul sorts out the tackle, Bob’s job is to cook and find an unusual place for them to stay. These range from yurts to beach huts and often leave Paul horrified as they are cold and uncomfortable. They also talk to people who live in the area; in one case a brewer, in another a vicar.
‘I think the telly people thought you couldn’t just do a show about two blokes fishing,’ says Bob. ‘Once we were having a conversation about death and who was more likely to die first so we went to talk to a vicar. It turned out she didn’t know what happens when you die. She didn’t have a clue. I thought it’d be a good starting point. But no.’
The fishing itself was enjoyable for Bob if not bountiful. ‘Over 14 days, I only caught four or five fish; and two of them were tiddlers,’ he admits. ‘But I had a lot of fun along the way.’
Despite the laughs, heart disease and mortality do loom large over the show. ‘Having a heart operation makes you think about death,’ he says. ‘It’s different for everyone. Some people just brush it off, but it’s made me think about all sorts of silly things. For instance, if I hear a song I haven’t heard for ten years on the radio, I think, “If I can get to 70, I will only hear that song once more in my life.”
‘I avoided thinking about my mortality until I was 58, now I’m 59. I don’t know if that’s dull but Paul, who’s 60, and I think about it a lot. When I was recuperating there weren’t people in the public eye I could look to and that’s why we wanted to do the show.
‘Lots of celebrities have had heart operations and keep them under wraps but I couldn’t because me and Vic Reeves had to cancel our tour. It’s good for other people to see you can come out the other side. We talk to a heart consultant and during the show people will learn a lot about heart disease.’
While Bob’s thoughts often turn morbid, being dangerously ill has given him a new lease of life. ‘I’ve got a new drive to do things I’ve always wanted to do,’ he says. ‘One is starting a football podcast and this show is another. If I was asked to do something before, I’d make a mental checklist of reasons not to do it – if I had one, I’d refuse. Now I’m much more positive.
‘When time is running out, it gives you more motivation than you could ever have imagined.’
‘There’s something so peaceful about fishing, it’s like meditation’