Comedian Jim Bowen Recovers After Strokes

Jim Bowen, the 73-year-old front-man of the popular old comedy-quiz show Bullseye has spent eight weeks in a hospital in Lancashire following the strokes, and demonstrated the retention of his sense of humour as he quipped: “They injected me with some aspirin as I couldn't swallow, it was in your bum, a bullseye.”

Nevertheless, Mr Bowen did admit that he was worried as he was taken to hospital. “My arm and leg had gone, I couldn't talk and I thought: 'This is not good'.” He added: “In the hospital I was lying in this bed and a woman said I'd had another stroke because I'd lost movement in my left arm – it had just gone dead."

Mr Bowen took medication and has physiotherapy for his speech and movement and is determined to come through it, echoing the determination that saw him make it as a successful comedian, having started a career as a teacher. Mr Bowen spent 15 years on Bullseye, starting in 1981.

During his rehabilitation he has to wear surgical tape strapped from his mouth to his earlobe, prompting him to say that he had a better face for radio than TV.

Mr Bowen said that before the strokes he had planned to appear on stage in Lancaster. Now, however, he is considering running a charity show to raise money for the hospital's stroke unit.

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