A North-East town famous for it's army camp, two comics who shun mainstream humour and one of the BBC's experimental digital channels; Steve Pratt reports on Catterick, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and BBC3.

COMEDY duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer have had plenty of input into their new BBC series. They're the stars and the writers, and they've had a say in the casting and costumes too.

Vic And Bob In Catterick finds the North-East pair finally bringing to the screen a project they wrote four years ago. They play brothers, Chris and Carl Palmer - characters that originated in a sketch in Bang Bang, It's Reeves And Mortimer.

"It was a bit like The Office but set in a club. Carl and Chris were the bouncers," explains Reeves, who is Leeds-born but raised in Darlington. "I play Chris, who hasn't been out of the house in years. He's got that air about him that makes him look really tough but, actually, he's dead soft."

Mortimer is Carl, just out of the army and back in his home town. He's desperate to find the son he hasn't seen in over 15 years. This sounds much more serious and plot-driven than previous Reeves and Mortimer work. "The storyline is far better than Vic and I ever thought, and the story has really taken over," says Mortimer. "The key to how we write is to talk about things and if we both laugh at something, then it goes in. We've never written anything like this before. It's a comedy drama, but it's very dark in some parts and in others, it's part musical. There are songs included in every episode that characters mime to."

Reeves adds: "We're very honest with each other and if one of us doesn't find something funny, then it doesn't go in. We tend to find it quite easy to come up with ideas although it's easier because there are two of us and we can bounce ideas off each other.

"If it was me writing on my own, then I might be quite tempted to sit and watch daytime television instead. With this series, we were just sitting in my kitchen and came up with the idea, and it then sprouted leaves and became bigger and bigger."

After Chris and Carl are involved in an armed robbery, Reeves also appears as a policeman, Inspector Fowler, an American cop with ambitions to work for the NYPD. He achieves his aim - although NYPD stands for North Yorkshire Police Department in this case.

The cast also includes Reese Shearsmith, from The League of Gentlemen, and Matt Lucas, from Little Britain. They wrote the role of hotel dogsbody Mark specifically for Middlesbrough actor Mark Benton, after working with him on Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased).

But the most difficult character to cast was Ian, described by Reeves as "this real slice of oddness", until they bumped into Geordie actor Tim Healy in a pub one night.

"I had the script for Vic And Bob In Catterick with me and Ian has these huge speeches, so I ripped out one of the pages of dialogue and said to Tim, 'have a look at that and tell me if you want to do it'," recalls Mortimer. "Half an hour later, he came over and said that he would do it. It was a great chance meeting and Tim is just perfect."

The Reeves and Mortimer comedy partnership has now been going 15 years, since a chance meeting at the Goldsmith Tavern in South London where Reeves, aka Jim Moir, was doing a solo show in an upstairs room and Mortimer was among the audience of six people.

Away from work, both relax at their respective homes in Kent. Mortimer likes spending time with his children, taking them to and from school. "Once they're in bed, I like to watch television, things like Location Location Location," he says.

"I really like gardening too. When you have a house full of children, there's never a quiet moment, so I like getting out in the garden for a bit of time to myself." He still supports Middlesbrough, but regrets he doesn't get to see them very often these days. Reeves has just celebrated his first wedding anniversary to model Nancy Sorrell. "We just like doing normal things really," he says. "Nancy has forced me to watch EastEnders which I now enjoy. We make our own soap and bubble bath and, because we've got a garden full of such beautiful flowers, we press some of the flowers and frame them. It might seem a bit odd to some people, but it seems normal to us."

* Vic And Bob In Catterick begins on Sunday on BBC3 at 10.30pm and repeated on Tuesday at 9.30pm amd Wednesday at 11pm.

Published: 12/02/2004