REEVES AND MORTIMER
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The List: How did Randall & Hopkirk come about?
Bob Mortimer: I saw in The Sunday Times that PolyGram had bought the rights to Randall & Hopkirk so we phoned our agent and asked if we could do it and they said. ‘Yeah'.
Vic Reeves: And then we said. ‘Can we have Charlie Higson writing it?’ and they said. ‘Yeah‘ again.
BM: And he likes his thrillers does Charlie so we knew that this wasn't going to turn into a spoof.
VR: There was never any question of
just remaking the original scripts: you‘d be as well watching the repeats. BM: The big update is that we see what happens to Marty in heaven, so half of it is just one great big special effect. And the Jeff and Jeannie relationship is taken on a bit further. TL: Any lights about who was to play who?
VR: We thought it was to be the other way round initially. but when we came to our first meeting it was talked about as though I was the dead one.
BM: And they were right; it kind of
reflects our relationship. In Shooting Stars. I‘m basically the straight man trying to get on with the quiz and Jim [Moir aka Vic Reeves] is a bit
YOU’RE InDEAD
They've asked what was on the end of Vic's stick, hung around The Smell Of watching the ships going out and coming back in again and fired a large grizzly hear at Mark Lamaar in Shooting Stars. Now, they are turning their hand to serious acting with an update of the classic late 60$ psychic detective series, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). So, why are VIC REEVES and 808 MORTIMER sharing such an interest in animal shit? Interview: Brian Donaldson
maverick. And again in Ram/all & Hopkirk. I'm trying to solve cases and Jim‘s being helpful occasionally.
TL: Do you remember watching the original?
BM: We watched a couple of them recently and I found it really slow and dull. but my memory of it was very positive. I was about ten and I really believed in that ghost and l was gobsmacked by the effects.
VR: We‘re programmed now to watch
speed television. quick edits and stuff
like that. Actually. the Americans are quite keen on it. but they‘ll probably make it with a couple of big stars in it. They’ll have Kevin Spacey doing him and Jude Law doing me.
BM: That would be very confusing. I know a terrible secret about Jude Law (looks at tape recorder). I‘ll tell you when the journalist has retreated.
VR: They’d get Uma Thurman to play Jeannie in a catsuit.
BM: Cate Blanchett. Mickey Rooney still alive?
VR: He could do you.
BM: Mickey Rooney did have . . . he wasn‘t . . . ()n a scale. he wasn‘t the furthest from Down’s Syndrome.
VR: If there is any actor on this planet that 1 near to despise. it would be him.
He makes me cringe.
TL: Any debate about how Marty was to die?
BM: We talked about having him crushed in the bin wagon.
VR: Charlie would listen to your ideas patiently, but he would know exactly what was going to happen.
BM: He has a much better feel for a mass audience than me and Jim have ever had. He’ll write things for Harry linfield. whereas we just want to put in what we like and that’s not necessarily got that broad appeal.
T|.: What do you think ofAli G?
BM: He’s cheeky. isn‘t be? It was fantastic when he said that science was something that floats in the air. VR: He’s Jewish isn’t he?
TL: He was apparently in the Jewish Socialist Party at Cambridge and did Footlights.
BM: I don‘t know why. but that puts me off a bit. It shouldn’t. I mean he‘s just funny, isn’t he? That’s me just being snobbish; me just being an idiot; a fuckin’ half-witted shithead. TL: How much are your projects to do with audience expectation?
BM: l was watching an interview with The League Of Gentlemen and they were saying that they sit and think
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20 THE LIST 16—30 Mar 2000