Bob Mortimer has revealed he was in a wheelchair and ‘wasn’t very well’ during filming the upcoming seventh series of Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing . The 65-year-old comedian was ‘looked after’ by his co-star Paul Whitehouse , 65, during his health crisis , which left him without the use of one of his legs, and praised Paul for the support he gave. Bob was unable to walk due to a six-month battle with shingles in his muscles and found parts of filming ‘very challenging’.
He said: ‘I wasn’t very well and it made it a bit of a struggle but, as always, Paul looked after me and pulled me through. ‘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.’ Despite his struggles, Bob insisted he was getting better, and was ‘reasonably sprightly’ by the end of the series. He continued to The Mirror : ‘I just tried to get some muscle back, or get some to grow a bit stronger.
I’m 80 per cent back and, by the end of the series, I was reasonably sprightly.’ Looking at the series itself, which first aired in 2018 and returns this Sunday, the Taskmaster star teased that ‘the first two episodes are the greatest of Gone Fishing that have ever been made’. He added: ‘I think they’re magnificent.
Paul and I are just getting better and better at it, which sounds boastful. I think we know.