Ulrika Jonsson and the boys returns for more slapstick comedy in new series of Shooting Stars

"Well, I can tell you, you have the job," says Vic, 51 (real name, Jim Moir). Wearing cream trousers, a white shirt and a cream linen waistcoat, he sharply contrasts to Bob's sombre, grey-suited look.

They're halfway through rehearsing one of the episodes of Shooting Stars, the surreal show that first burst onto our screens over 16 years ago. The rehearsal, Bob's keen to point out, is purely so the cameras know where to point, rather than a chance for the two comedians to run through the jokes.

"Jim and I know what we're doing on the evening, but we don't really like to do it before - to keep it fresh. If we've said it once then we're bored with it. Even saying it twice is pretty tedious for us really," he says.

The show that introduced the world to the dove from above, uvavu, and the legendary voice of the club singer, piloted back in December 1993 and went on to run for five series until December 2002. Following a seven-year break, a one-off Christmas special celebrating the show's 15th anniversary resulted in the series being re-commissioned last year, and now it returns to BBC Two once more.

Despite the long gap, neither Vic nor Bob say the return came as a surprise, even if it surprised others.

"Nothing had really replaced it in the meantime, this kind of nonsense quiz. There had been a few attempts by the other channels but no-one seems to have filled our shoes," says Bob, 51.

He describes Shooting Stars as "a quiz show where the questions aren't worth answering" and both Vic and Bob joke that the questions are secondary to the slapstick.

"The guests don't really get much of a look in," says Vic, smiling.

"We've probably found it easier this series than any other to get guests," adds Bob. "They're probably the best set of guests, of the highest calibre."

"A lot of people are on because they want to be," says Vic, nodding. "They don't get paid anything worth talking about, so they don't do it for the money."

Asked about their favourite guests over the years, Bob says "the Americans have always been good".

"Their agents go and tell them they have to go on everything, so they come on our show and they don't really know what's happening," says Vic.

As is tradition, Vic continues to have an attractive female guest to his right-hand side.

"That's kind of expanded quite a bit. There's a lot more involvement with me and them," he says. Former Pussycat Doll Kimberly Wyatt is one of those on the receiving end of Vic's amorous advances. "I tap dance with her and my underpants fall down," he reveals.

"When we finished filming, I heard her say to one of her people, 'So that's a crash course in British comedy'. It's a bit of rock and roll circus of mayhem going on."

Alongside Vic and Bob will be original team captain Ulrika Jonsson, head of Team A, and returning as captain of Team B is dour-faced comedian Jack Dee.

"We try and let him get on with his own thing," says Vic. "He tells his miserable stories and I bully him, so that's a about the extent of Jack's involvement."

Not making a return is Matt Lucas, who made his name as the drumming, babygrow-clad man with the scores, George Daws. Filming commitments with David Walliams have put paid to that. In his place will be odd-ball Angelos Epithemiou, who's already made an appearance on the show.

"Each week Angelos does an old-school magic performance," says Vic.

"He does catching the bullets in his mouth, makes a dove disappear, makes a pig disappear," says Bob. "He's really given this show a kick up its backside."

Despite coming ninth in The Comedian's Comedian poll of the best ever comedy acts, Vic and Bob's style is comedy marmite. As many people collapse into fits of laughter at their antics, as are left in stony-faced silence.

"It's old school variety, it's slapstick," says Vic. "If you don't get it then may be you're looking for something deeper and that's on the other channel."

Detractors include their own children. Vic who has four-year-old twins with his wife Nancy Sorrell and two older children from his first marriage says: "My little ones are just excited that I'm somewhere in the area where they do CBBC."

Bob, who has two sons Harry, 13 and Tom, 11 with his wife Lisa, says: "They're pretty indifferent to what we do on the telly. Your dad's boring and they don't find it funny."

"They quite like the fact I do the Churchill dog advert, that excites them but not the show."

The pair come up with ideas for the show and even after all these years are never faced with writer's block. "We actually have too many ideas that we can't squeeze in so we don't have trouble in that respect," says Vic.

"We work in a very old-fashioned way. We don't have auto cues or idiot boards, so we're kind of unique in that respect. We treat it like we would do it in a theatre."

Stories abound that the pair first met when Bob jumped on stage and joined Vic during his stand-up routine, but Bob says the truth is less dramatic.

"Jim was doing Vic's Big Night Out in front of eight or ten friends in a room above a pub and I just went along to it.

"After the show finished, we were all there chatting and I just started doing bits and pieces. I never got on stage or heckled him."

Shooting Stars, BBC2, Tuesday 9.30pm