Give me just a little more time, time, time
Athletico Mince review
Rating – 
There are few things in this world I loathe as much as football. My feelings on the “beautiful game” are similar to Clarkson’s views on certain branches of the Windsor family tree. However, there are few things in the world I love more than Mr. Bob Mortimer.
Most people my age have grown up with Vic and Bob. From Big Night Out, to Shooting Stars, and now we are all old sods, Gone Fishing is must watch viewing. If you haven’t heard of this podcast, it should also be added to your list asap.
So what’s it about?
Originally conceived as a comedy podcast about football, hosted by Bob Mortimer and Andrew Dawson. Since about episode 20 though, this series has only a tenuous link to the overpaid prima donnas of the EPL and other leagues. The early episodes aren’t great. Bob and Andy even say you should probably skip the first few, and if you aren’t a football fan you can skip a few more.
The characters so brilliantly brought to life by Bob’s ramblings are football players or managers in name only. Harry Kane with his magic chin, Peter Beardsley’s joke book, Sean Dyche with his “motivational” songs and Steve McLaren and his pet snake Caspar could have any names as far as I’m concerned. They’d still be hilarious, although nowadays I can’t see pictures of Dele “Debbie” Alli without hearing Bob’s voice. It gets me in a right fluffery buffery.
Although that is not to say that the only celebrities getting rebuilt from scratch are footballers. Matt Allwright, Jeremy Corbin, Denise Welch, Sting and more all appear in increasingly surreal situations (the latter in Bob’s “crime” series Geordie Heat).
If you also add into the mix the South African gangbanger, Bob’s Crime Files (he does love his crime), the Scottish songs/stories and Barry Homeowner aka Train Guy, and you have such a varied range of hilarity that you are bound to find something that will elicit at least one laugh an episode (and probably a lot more).
Is it any good?
OF COURSE IT IS. I would go so far as to not recommend this to football fans. They get precious about people mocking the children’s game they devote vast amounts of time and money to slavishly follow. Seeing how things that originally started as throw away lines have developed into epic storylines (as the adventures of Steve McLaren and Caspar are testament to) show Bob’s skill as a comedy writer. I’m actually not sure how much of the show is written. There are stories where Andy supplies voices, so I’m sure that these are pre planned, but likewise I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that just gets made up.
Up to this point, this has been a rather one sided review. As I said at the beginning, here are two presenters and so far I’ve only been talking about one.
Andy Dawson comes from a more sports oriented background, hosting the podcast Top Flight Time Machine (which is a football podcast, so there’s no chance of me reviewing it). He really holds his own, and whilst not having quite an equal split of the jokes, he provides plenty of laughs as well. Usually when he starts corpsing at Bob’s attempts at accents.
Final thoughts
If you like football then have a listen. If you don’t like football, but like Bob Mortimer then have a listen. If you don’t like Bob, or football then I suggest you listen anyway, because it is one of the best comedy podcasts out there. The only “downside” is that when Bob is filming then they release compilation episodes. So there’ll be a whole episode of Peter Beardsley, or Scottish tales or some such. Due to the quality of the writing they do hold up to repeated listening (hence my use of inverted commas around downside).
Wow, 684 words fell out of my head in about 2 hours. Just goes to show how much I love this show.
You can get Athletico Mince here: