Bob Mortimer has talked about how close he was to having a heart attack onstage in 2015.

In an interview with The Big Issue to promote his new series Mortimer And Whitehouse: Gone Fishing he said it was discovered that 95% of his arteries were blocked. He had to have a triple heart bypass and postpone the first leg of his 25th anniversary tour with Vic Reeves.

“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," said Mortimer. “Four days later they were cutting me open."

Read the full interview here. Read a preview here.

Mortimer And Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Wednesdays from June 20, 10pm, BBC2.

Picture: BBC/Owl Power/Parisa Taghizadeh