In October 2015, Mortimer underwent triple bypass surgery, which led to the cancellation of the first leg of the Reeves and Mortimer 25 years tour.

Gary our narrator and gateway to this wonderful world he inhabits is unconventional, imaginative and quite worldly wise. Mortimer has also just penned the foreword to How We Fish: The Love, Life And Joy Of The Riverbank by Whitehouse and the show's fishing consultant John Bailey, published 14th September by Mudlark.

It contains the funniest description of somebody having a bath that you're ever likely to read… But there is genuine tension at times, and I came to believe in and care about the central characters. Fashionable west London is the setting for Griffiths’s third novel to feature DI Harbinder Kaur, now relocated from Sussex. If you like Bob (and if you don't then I suggest you take a long, hard look at yourself), then you'll like this. Not a very interesting plot and there were long, dull descriptions of everything that could possibly be described. Kingsolver’s raw and empathetic writing make this a gripping and vital tale for our times too, passionately tackling Big Pharma, healthcare, addiction, education and poverty.

Well, if what you want is a book that reads the way that Mortimer talks, there’s plenty to satisfy you here. As for the cosy crime caper that Gary gets mixed up in, our unremarkable but amusingly stoic legal assistant finds himself at the centre of a murder investigation when his work colleague, Brendan, is reported dead following their evening in a south London pub. Kaur’s first case is that of Tory MP and vocal climate-change denier Garfield Rice, found dead at his school reunion.

However, the name of another student, David Moore, who either fell or was pushed in front of a train in 1998, keeps cropping up – and when Rice’s apparent drug overdose turns out to be murder, DI Kaur suspects there may be a link between the two deaths. In The Satsuma Complex there's nothing stopping him from going into the absurd, and there's nothing to keep the plot from getting carried away with itself. It traces the life he enjoyed but still brought him pain, and he owns his mistakes and discusses his flaws openly. Throughout, Newman’s voice is heard, offering a glimpse into the heart and mind of the Hollywood great we thought we knew, but didn’t. And not even that bothered by – his motivation is just to wangle another encounter with the fragrant Emily.

He a shy legal assistant at a Peckham solicitor’s office who panics at the first sign of danger and only persists with the case because he fancies the mysterious befringed woman who turns out to be embroiled in it. If his name were missing from the title page, then riffs such as the narrator’s account of how he copes with anxiety – he imagines that he’s wearing “a magnificent pair of tan yellow clogs… made of a hard, almost translucent toffee”, while passers-by shout admiring comments such as, “Those clogs look more than sufficient, Gary! It takes the reader behind the scenes of the fictional seaside village of Llaregubb (adults should read the town’s name backwards for a giggle) – giving a glimpse of what life is like for a whole range of people. Mortimer appeared on BBC Two's Never Mind the Buzzcocks on four occasions – in 1996, on Sean Hughes' team; in 2000, on Phill Jupitus's team; in 2008, as a guest team captain; and in 2012, as a guest host. He tells the squirrel what he’s planning to do next and the creature, as ventriloquised by Gary, tries to talk him out of it.To describe me as anonymous would be unfair but to notice me other than in passing would be a rarity.

I’ve had the same old Nokia phone for years and years and have never bothered with social media and the like. At Manor Park – the sort of trendy comprehensive chosen by parents who are “too mean or too right on” to go private – Rice’s coterie included students who went on to be a famous actor, a guitarist in a well-known band, a Labour MP and the headteacher of the school. A page-turning story with a cast of unforgettable characters, The Satsuma Complex is the brilliantly funny first novel by bestselling author and comedian Bob Mortimer.

Your enjoyment will largely depend on your view of the main character, Gary, whose quirkily comedic observations will amuse or irritate, according to taste. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. In 2003, Mortimer and Reeves were listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In the process of tracking the woman he comes to dub Satsuma, Gary finds himself stumbling his way into the midst of what appears to be a crime ring.