Bob Mortimer has opened up about his health during an appearance on The One Show.
The comedian, 64, appeared on the BBC’s early evening show alongside Paul Whitehouse, 65, on Friday (1 September) where he explained how their show, Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing came to be as a form of recuperation following his triple-heart bypass surgery in 2015.
He previously revealed that a doctor told him that 95% of his arteries were blocked.
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Host Roman Kemp then asked how the benefits of nature sparked the series, to which Mortimer replied: Yeah I wasn’t very well.”
He then laughed: “I’m never very well. It’s been a long time since I was very well. So Paul took me fishing to get me out the doldrums after heart operations. And that’s how it all started.”
Whitehouse joked: “He was very vulnerable at the time and I thought, ‘I could manipulate this into a show’, you think I’m joking, don’t you? Look at the dead eyes.”
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Mortimer revealed in 2018 that three years prior a doctor warned him that he risked having a heart attack on stage had he gone ahead with a live comedy tour. He was meant to go on the road with Vic Reeves but the tour had to be cancelled so Mortimer could recover front he operation.
Mortimer told the Big Issue in 2018: “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.
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“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% blocked.
“It is amazing when you see the pictures, because it is an incredibly resistant organ - if there is a gap, it will f***ing push that blood through it.”
During his recovery, Whitehouse invited Mortimer on a fishing trip and the rest is history.
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During an interview on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre podcast, Mortimer said: “I did a show last week, a fishing show and there was only two and a half days filming and I did it Tuesday, Wednesday and half of Thursday and I was in hospital on the Saturday.
“I am sorry I should not have said that should I? It’s a real downer.”
Gone Fishing series six is on BBC iPlayer now.
Gregory Robinson