Bob Mortimer has revealed that he “couldn’t walk” for “half of the new season” of Gone Fishing, saying that co-star Paul Whitehouse “pulled him through”.
The genial fishing show has just started its seventh season on BBC2, with the two comedians and long-time friends spending time reflecting on their lives and careers while exploring different areas of the British landscape.
The show first came about when Whitehouse was looking to help Mortimer recover from his triple heart bypass surgery in 2015, in which it was discovered that 95 per cent of his arteries were blocked.
In a new interview, Mortimer has confirmed that a very different medical ailment affected him for much of the new season of the show, with a six-month battle with shingles leaving him with muscle wastage and often bound to a wheelchair.
“I wasn’t very well and it made it a but if a struggle but, as always, Paul looked after me and pulled me through,” Mortimer said (via The Mirror).
“For half of the season, I couldn’t walk so it was very challenging at times. When we were in Trent, I was being taken from a wheelchair to the top of the bank. You never see that but you never see me on my feet either,” he added.
Mortimer had already revealed some details of his battle with shingles, which he described as “worse than his heart situation”, and also forced him to miss an episode of the previous season, where he was replaced by Lee Mack.
He went on to give an update on his current health status, adding: “I just tried to get some muscle back, or get some to grow a bit stronger. I’m 80% back and, by the end of the series, I was reasonably sprightly.”
Mortimer has gone on to describe the new season as “magnificent” and “the greatest of Gone Fishing that have ever been made”.
“Paul and I are just getting better and better at it, which sounds boastful. I think we know what the show is now and what people like,” he continued. “I love this series. Just like the previous series. It’s a lovely and nostalgic thing – two old men having hotdogs by the lake. They were absolutely delicious. It was a genius idea.”
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