Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer have said they never wanted to be “super f****** famous” and chose comedy as a career because it seemed like a “pleasant” way to live.
The comedy duo, who return to screens this month with Vic & Bob’s Big Night Out, put their enduring success down to a mistrust of changing tastes in comedy.
Reeves told the Press Association: “We don’t think about what people might like. We just think: ‘That’s funny and that’s ridiculous so we’ll do that’. We don’t analyse anything.”
Mortimer added: “I always think when we say it, it sounds a little bit pompous in a way, but in an odd way, it’s quite the reverse really.
“There are comedians thinking, ‘I’ll fulfil that need’ or ‘They would like this’. I think that’s a bit more cynical and pompous to think they could manipulate people.
“We just do what we do and it’s a take it or leave it, you know. We’re not trying to judge audiences, or trying to attract a particular audience, or swear because we think that would make us more modern.”
Reeves, real name Jim Moir, continued: “It might almost be in reverse, because we don’t want to be popular. There’s no point us going ‘Oh this would be a good career move’ because it’s too late for all that.”
Asked what motivates him, Mortimer replied: “Passing time in a pleasant way … I think that’s the honest answer, because Jim’s right, neither of us have got a desire to get super f****** famous, it’s just a pleasant way to pass the time.”
Four new episodes of Vic & Bob’s Big Night Out will be broadcast on BBC 4 later this month, nearly three decades after the programme’s predecessor, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, introduced viewers to the pair in 1990.
In the interim years, Reeves, 59, and Mortimer, also 59, have created a series of well-received shows such as Shooting Stars on BBC 2 while developing a committed fan following.
Now, following a successful Big Night Out Christmas special last year, the pair are reviving the format for a new series.
Asked if they had ever been tempted by the vast venues played by comedians like Michael McIntyre, Mortimer replied that their comedy was of a different breed.
He said: “I think he’s got skills we don’t have. I’m not a fan of the stand-up comedy personally but some of them are incredibly skilled. And that’s not us, is it Jim? We don’t have those skills, or motivation.”
Vic & Bob’s Big Night out airs on BBC 4 at 10pm on November 28.
