In June and July 2018, Mortimer teamed up with his longtime friend and fellow comedian, Paul Whitehouse, in a BBC2 six part comedy series, Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. The two friends, who have both suffered from heart conditions, shared their thoughts and experiences while fishing at a variety of locations around the UK. [23] Five series of the programme have aired to date; a book was released in 2020, [24] series 4 and a Christmas special aired in 2021. [25] [26]

Mortimer has been a regular guest panellist on the BBC1 quiz show Would I Lie to You? since 2012, having appeared in eleven episodes up to the 2022 series. He has since stated that his appearances on this show have given him more recognition than any of his previous work. [21] On 29 December 2017, Mortimer and Reeves starred in a relaunch and new singular episode of their comedy Big Night Out for the BBC. The show has been remade and subsequently renamed to Vic and Bob's Big Night Out. The episode remained true to the classic Big Night Out formula and was composed of various comedy songs, skits, characters and sketches. This was the first time the Big Night Out series had featured Mortimer's name in the title. A full series of Vic and Bob's Big Night Out began on BBC Four in November 2018. When fellow guest Greg Davies questioned this, asking, "have you written it Bob? Because it sounds like you're making it up", Mortimer protested: "Honestly!" What’s more, this foray into fiction shares common ground with the likes of Richard Osman and Rev Richard Coles, whose successful transitions from light entertainers into light entertainment authors is clearly a blueprint.

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As in his television work, Mortimer conveys an infectious joy in his own oddity, and, as his recent bestselling memoir And Away… showed, there’s a sweetness to his worldview that makes his writing gently poignant. And although I can’t imagine non-fans emerging anything other than baffled, those who are used to his brand of weirdness will find that the book works well as a thriller, too. Like Spike Milligan, the only vintage comic whose fiction is still read, Mortimer has managed to use a novel as a vehicle for his distinctive comedic voice. Also in 2005, Mortimer voiced the character of Father Nicholas in the animated BBC Three series Popetown. The show was not broadcast by the channel, for fear of offending Catholic viewers, though it saw a DVD release later that year. [20]

Press Association (27 October 2015). "Bob Mortimer cancels tour after triple heart bypass operation". The Guardian . Retrieved 31 October 2015. In 1996–97, Mortimer appeared on an episode of Mash and Peas with Matt Lucas, David Walliams and Reece Shearsmith, in a sketch spoofing Seinfeld, called I'm Bland... yet all my friends are krazy!. So many comedians have published novels this year that I have begun to wonder whether writing one is an assignment in a yet-to-be-broadcast episode of Taskmaster. Most of them have confirmed the axiom that comics can’t write memorable fiction: even the novels of master funnymen such as Eric Morecambe and Les Dawson did not burnish their reputations. a b Fox, Killian (16 October 2022). "The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer review – the sleuth is out there". The Guardian . Retrieved 18 October 2022.Nevertheless, marooned like desert islands in an endless ocean of guff, there is a smattering of truly sumptuous passages of writing. Sadly, they’re not arranged in any kind of structure that might approximate a story. (Paul Connolly) Happily, The Satsuma Complex doesn’t feel like a rush job to capitalise on the bestselling exploits of its author’s peers. Mortimer has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, which gives him great pain when he is stressed, especially before making a television series or embarking on a tour. On those occasions, he controls it with steroids. [32] But it’s the details that really set this book apart. Off the wall doesn’t quite cover it. What other fictional sleuth would write “large bananas” in tiny letters on an architrave in his office to cheer himself up at work? Or assign the names Zak Briefcase and Lengthy Parsnips to a pair of dogs he passes in the street? Fans of Mortimer’s surrealist turns on Would I Lie to You?, or his internet sketch show Train Guy, won’t be disappointed. Nor will crime fiction devotees, if only they can get over the talking squirrels.

All this suggests that novel-writing is a very promising new direction for comedy’s latest national treasure. The two later created a one-off pilot for a sitcom called The Weekenders in 1992, followed by the sketch show The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer in 1993, and Shooting Stars, a comedy panel show that first aired in December 1993. After being commissioned, Shooting Stars ran for five series between 1995 and 2002, with a special anniversary edition broadcast in December 2008. A sixth series was broadcast in late 2009, followed by a seventh series in mid-2010, and an eighth in 2011. Kingsolver’s novel is more serious and fatalistic than its 170-year-old predecessor – as Demon says, ‘A kid born to the junkie is a junkie’. But in updating it, she makes a great case for popular fiction’s enduring ability to shine a light on the kind of people we are. (BE) The story is "about a bloke who's wife leaves him but maybe she's been taken, he's got to find out" Mortimer told The One Show. "On the way he utilises a very long shoe to solve the mystery"On 27 February 2008, Reeves announced that he and Mortimer were working together on a new sitcom about superheroes who get their powers through a malfunctioning telegraph pole. [14] Mortimer wrote The Satsuma Complex, a comic novel published in 2022. [30] An audiobook was released, narrated by Mortimer and Sally Phillips. [31] Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.452. ISBN 1-904994-10-5. In 2005, Mortimer hosted his first major TV series without Reeves, a comedy panel game for BBC One, called 29 Minutes of Fame, which featured regular guests such as Jo Brand.

And so begins Gary's quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to finally bring some love and excitement into his unremarkable life..."

The comedian first revealed that he was writing a second novel in May, following the success of his debut The Satsuma Complex. He told Kathy Burke on her Where There's A Will, There's A Wake podcast, that he would not be reviving his semi-autobiographical, disaffected legal assistant character Gary Thorn from the first novel.