Rich Hall's Fishing Show (2025)
Rich Hall's Fishing Show was a comedy programme written by and starring Rich Hall and Mike Wilmot. It was first broadcast on 11 November 2003 in the United Kingdom on BBC Four. It was repeated in the UK on Dave in 2008. The Fishing with the Corleones sequence involving the late Anita Roddick was omitted from the repeat. The show was set in the lochs of Scotland, on which Hall and Wilmot would go fishing. However, very few fish were caught, and the situation instead formed the setting for dialogue between the pair which would be vaguely themed on subjects like love or the Olympic Games. Some episodes featured sketches involving characters such as Bob, a decapitated limousine driver whose head had survived, and Charles Manson, a reclusive salesman who, despite his appearance, was not the convicted serial killer of the same name. Each episode would end with a celebrity guest who was invited on to the boat to talk and fish with the pair. At the end of each show, a celebrity guest would appear and talk with Hall and Wilmot. The idea was seen earlier in a pilot the pair had called Rich Hall's Badly Funded Think Tank. In that show, the segment was titled "Fishing with the Corleones", but in the Fishing Show these sections are unappended.
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Episode 1 - Travel
Release Date:The comedian embraces his new role as cultural commentator, welcoming Canadian funnyman Mike Wilmot and betting guru John McCririck to explore the theme of travel, while sitting in a fishing boat in the Scottish Trossachs
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Episode 2 - Love
Release Date:Writer and academic Germaine Greer joins comedians Rich Hall and Mike Wilmot to explore the theme of love during a fishing trip around the Scottish Trossachs
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Episode 3 - Freedom
Release Date:Uri Geller joins Rich Hall and Mike Wilmot to talk about issues that affect freedom and democracy, including George W Bush, September 11, London's bid for the Olympics and the Iraqi war, during a boat trip around the Scottish Trossachs. They also meet a failed businessman called Charles Manson, whose career has been blighted by an uncanny resemblance to his infamous namesake
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Episode 4 - Olympics
Release Date:Body Shop co-founder Anita Roddick joins Rich Hall and Mike Wilmot on a boat trip around the Scottish Trossachs, where they talk about London's Olympic bid and whether Hackney could ever be glamorous enough to rival Paris
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Episode 5 - God
Release Date:Magician Paul Daniels joins Rich Hall and Mike Wilmot in Scotland to talk about his views on religion, and the boys also meet failed businessman Charles Manson, who lives in a caravan by the Loch and bears an unfortunate resemblence to his notorious namesake
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Episode 6 - We Can't Afford to Do the Show
Release Date:Mike Wilmot is troubled when Rich won't tell him which celebrity they are interviewing, but it gives them time to discuss the lack of money they'd need to make a proper fishing programme. Last in series