Bob Mortimer has arrived for our interview early, and so we talk for 20 minutes or so before his other half, Jim Moir – Vic Reeves – who is stuck in traffic, joins us. Mortimer sits outside the photographer’s studio in the sun, chatting about the fortunes of his football team, Middlesbrough – how he and his two sons, though both at art college in London, rarely miss a match; and about the days before he was a comedian and earning his living as a solicitor in Peckham (speciality: suing the local authority for cockroach infestations. “Once you had one tenant, it was pretty easy to get the whole block onside…”). All the time he talks though, he has an eye on a gate out to the road. “It’s not really like Jim,” he says, and, “He’ll be here in a minute.”

Reeves and Mortimer have called their current stage show The Poignant Moments, with due tear-jerking irony. Still, talking to Mortimer, I’m struck by the more earnest edge of that sentiment. You half expect all comic duos to be at each other’s throats (like Abbott and Costello) or at least acid in their private thoughts about each other (like Pete and Dud). The most poignant thing about Vic and Bob, though, is that they appear to have sustained their best-of-mates status for 30 years (while laying into each other on set with baseball bats and frying pans). In an age of singular celebrity and the stadium-filling stand-up, they are the very last of a breed: the committed double act.

That sense is reinforced when Moir arrives grinning from behind his Eric Morecambe glasses in a tweedy suit, and they fall immediately into the familiar blunt rhythm of chat and non sequitur: the lifelong challenge of making each other laugh. Thy don’t really do question and answer, so our interview feels like eavesdropping on their ongoing dialogue with the opportunity for an occasional prompt. They didn’t expect to be the last of a line, Moir says, but that’s a bit how it has turned out. “It’s really a music hall act that we do,” he says. “And it’s true I don’t think there are really any others left. The Chuckle Brothers? Are Cannon and Ball still going? They say Ant and Dec are a double act, but they are just presenters. They read off an Autocue and they don’t do gags, so that doesn’t count.”

Number’s up: Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Observer

For most of the time since they have joined forces they have lived not far from each other in Kent. When they are writing, which is often, they go round to one another’s houses “from maybe 9.30 until 2pm” every day, start talking about what they watched on telly the previous night, or whatever, and hope something funny emerges. “I remember when I worked at the solicitor’s,” Mortimer says, “you’d go in, talk to your mates for a bit and then get down to work. With us the talking to your mates part never stops.”

If people aren’t interested in one bit, they won’t have to wait too long for something else to happen

The Poignant Moments is a greatest hits of those three decades of defiantly silly conversation, taking in the original slapstick of Big Night Out and Bang, Bang, the surrealist touches of Shooting Stars and some of their favourite characters from the sitcoms Catterick and House of Fools. “We went through the back catalogue and tried to squeeze it all in,” Moir says. “We don’t argue. We both have a pretty clear idea of what we want to do, and we try to keep things moving. Our thing with us has always been if people aren’t interested in one bit, they won’t have to wait too long for something else to happen.”

The poignancy part of the show has been sharpened by the fact that the tour had to be postponed after Mortimer was rushed into hospital for an emergency triple bypass operation last October. He had thought he had a chest infection, but his GP realised it was more serious and sent him straight to hospital. That was on the Thursday, and the operation was scheduled for the following Monday afternoon. On the Monday morning, fearing he might not make it, Mortimer married his partner of 22 years, Lisa Matthews, with special dispensation from the local registrar.

‘We’re like an indy group’: Vic Reeves Big Night out. Photograph: Youtube

“It was obviously a shock,” he says. “Though I don’t think it was as big a deal as I maybe thought. I come from an era when if you are told that you need a triple heart bypass it sounds pretty terminal. But I think it’s quite a normal operation these days.”

Moir insists Mortimer has come back stronger than ever, and the tour was a blessing. “The exercise is probably good for him. People don’t prance around as much as they ought to.”

When I worked at a solicitor’s, you’d go in, talk to your mates, then start work. With us, the talking part never stops

He turns to Mortimer, and they start batting back and forth, Moir as ever the slight aggressor, Mortimer vaguely on the back foot: “Are you still eating the right stuff?”

“Sort of. But I’ve got fucking cheese in the house now.”

“Pork pies?”

“No.”

“Vegetarian sausages?”

“No. I think of them like a gateway drug. But cheese is the one. If it’s in the house, I’m fucked. And I’ve seen it in the house.”

“It’s right. Cheese is a liability. In fact the first thing my wife said to me on waking up this morning was: ‘I’m not eating any more cheese.’ But I reckon she’ll be back on it by the weekend.”

‘It comes back to our lack of drive’: in House of Fools. Photograph: Christopher Baines/BBC/Pett TV

How’s married life? I ask Mortimer.

“I like it. And I really liked the day itself strangely. It was just me and my wife and my two kids. As you do, I was sort of thinking: ‘I am definitely dying’ – but it felt good to have settled my affairs. I’d made a will. Sorted out who was having the furniture. Got married. And now I feel pleased to have put all that in order. Have you got a will, Jim?”

“I have, but I need to have a look at it. I think it just says, you know, feel free to share whatever’s in the fridge.”

I brew beer with this ex-army bloke. Served in Bosnia. The beer is in his swimming pool. You stir it with an oar

When he came out of hospital Mortimer suggests that he was overwhelmed with gratitude. “I was like: I really love my settee, my telly, these really nice egg cups that we’ve had for a long time. And I was even really looking forward to the tour – and that used to be the thing that filled me with trepidation.”

Oddly, given the theatrical nature of their act, this has been the first live show they’ve done since the big break on TV in 1990. “It’s easier. The last time we did it we were young and we’d be boozing all night and all that,” Moir says. “Now we have two pints of the local beer and get to bed. Up for a decent breakfast.”

“We felt obliged when we were younger to go apeshit,” Mortimer says. “Now we have time to see the sights. Jim’s a bugger for wanting to visit things like rope museums. And there is always a thing like a rope museum.”

Game for a laugh: Vic and Bob with Matt Lucas in Shooting Stars in 1995. Photograph: BBC Pictures Archives

How come it has taken them so long to get back on the road?

“We are sensationally lacking in drive and ambition,” Moir says.

We talk a bit about how they first met. Moir was doing a stand-up show in a pub in south London, and Mortimer was in the audience and introduced himself afterwards.

It’s time to do some writing. I’ve been sat watching Homes under the Hammer – it’s a sure sign

“We found we both had an interest in Graeco-Roman wrestling so we got some margarine and a paddling pool and arranged to meet,” Moir explains, helpfully.

Was he looking for a sidekick?

“I was looking for anyone who fancied having a crack at helping me out. I was just out of art school and comedy seemed like a thing to do. I like the idea of going into things completely blind and having to guess about how to do them. That is why I am one of the worst mechanics in Britain.”

I wonder if he had read a piece that Jonathan Jones, the Guardian art critic, wrote comparing their show to the Dada movement in art, suggesting that with their meaningless catchphrases (“Uvavu!”) and happenings like “Les with his fear of chives”, and a game show called Read the Anthony Trollope Novel they were the true heirs to Tristan Tzara and Marcel Duchamp.

Festive spirit: in House of Fools Christmas 2014 Photograph: Chris Baines/BBC/Pett Productions

Moir – who did present a show called Gaga for Dada for the BBC that prompted that piece – laughs at the idea. “I just think we are old-fashioned,” he says. “But I guess my art at art school was quite similar to what I did on stage. I used to like painting my face and stuff like that. People think they are not allowed to laugh at art, but they are. Damien Hirst laughs at himself. I know Jake and Dinos Chapman and they laugh all the time at what they do and at other artists.”

If he’s not writing, Moir suggests, he will either be painting or watching old British films on the TV channel Talking Pictures. “I’ll watch that all day long,” he says, “and then all the adverts are for cruises for the over-60s, so that’s a bonus.”

“I’m getting drawn to a cruise,” Mortimer agrees.

“I got a good leaflet about it through the door: it said ‘The fjords – we aren’t the best cruise ship, but we go from Dover.’ I thought: well that’s not far. And I’m very fond of pickled fish.”

“I reckon we could go for free, Jim,” Mortimer says. “Do a lecture.”

“A lecture? What about?”

‘We’re old fashioned’: in BBC2’s Catterick. Photograph: John Rogers/BBC/Pett Productions

Mortimer isn’t sure. He wonders if he could talk about home brew. “I’ve been brewing my own beer with this ex-army bloke. Served in Bosnia. He’s got this lean-to, and the beer is in this swimming pool and you stir it with an oar. I got in touch through Twitter. I had a hankering to make one of these American-style IPAs, and I put it out on Twitter – anyone making this stuff near Tunbridge Wells? – and this bloke got in touch. It was six point something proof,” he says. “I wanted three point. But I stirred it too much. I was too keen with my oar.”

While they ponder the percentage proofs of various craft beers, and possible stirring songs, I ask what happened to their last TV series House of Fools, which ended abruptly after a second series.

“I dunno,” Moir says. “We were just getting into it. They don’t let you know it’s ended. You just never hear anything else.”

“House of Fools, that was the first thing I was sad that we couldn’t do any more,” Mortimer says. “But unless it’s a big hit like Peter Kay’s Car Share or something, they lose interest.”

“We tell ourselves we are like an indy group and they want mainstream,” Moir says. “We are like the Smiths.”

Sing along: onstage in 25 Years of Reeves and Mortimer. Photograph: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

“Probably not the Smiths,” Mortimer says.

“No. More like bloody Orange Juice.”

They run through a few projects that they haven’t got going. Film 4 asked them to write a film, which they did, but nothing happened. “We wrote it four years ago. Hopefully it’s next year now. It is ready to go,” Moir says. “But it hasn’t.”

“I think it comes back to our lack of drive,” Mortimer says brightly. They are doing a new sketch show for the BBC next year. “It’s time to start doing some writing. I’ve been sat watching Homes under the Hammer – that’s always a sure sign. I made a start, though. The other day I wrote down, ‘How very fucking hell’ on a bit of paper.”

Moir says he is on the case, too. “I wrote down yesterday: ‘You’ve got more hair on your body than most men could ever dream of. You’ll never need a cushion when you are driving.’”

This prompts a digression on Mortimer’s new car, for which he has cut a piece of memory foam out of his bed mattress, because the seat is too hard. And then some memories of life on the road.

Shoulder to shoulder: in House of Fools. Photograph: Chris Baines/BBC/Pett Productions

“Remember when we used to buy screen wash at petrol stations and sell it as part of the merchandise?” Moir says.

“It went like proverbial hot cakes.”

“I bet,” Moir says, “the Eagles don’t do screenwash. I bet Van Morrison doesn’t do it.”

“Van is missing a trick,” Mortimer says. And then they are off on the merits of two-for-one offers on chamois leathers. And whether they should extend the range to antifreeze. And how Jim has a yearning to buy a van with room for a sideboard in the back.

I wonder, can they imagine going on like this for ever?

Why would they want to imagine anything else?

25 Years of Reeves & Mortimer: The Poignant Moments will tour the UK from 29 November to 16 December. For dates and tickets go to ticketmaster.co.uk