Hugh Dennis

Hugh Dennis interview

The comedian found fame with The Mary Whitehouse Experience and has since appeared on series including Mock the Week and Outnumbered as well as Radio 4's The Now Show.

Radio Times review

A peach of a series finale, running in real time with Lee Mack in his favourite spot at the bar throughout. Lucy (Sally Bretton) is on her way to a restaurant for a job interview, and if she gets the role she'll be leaving for good. So Lee and Toby (Hugh Dennis) ponder life for Lee without Lucy. Should he run next door and hammer on the window, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate? Can he even admit he loves her?

The show's detractors say it's just a heap of puns with no soul. Not tonight. The underlying theme of the lackadaisical joker using silliness as a defence mechanism is blown open. Yet the gags - and there are many brilliant ones - never, ever stop.

Radio Times review

Tim Vine's absence is keenly felt in Not Going Out, but Hugh Dennis's addition to the cast is a shrewd move - he fills a similar comedy foil/sounding board role for those pub chats. But he has a delicious wryness, too, which softens the blokey stuff that goes on elsewhere.

Tonight he's called on, by a very tortuous route, to help Lee torpedo a surprise anniversary party that Lucy is hosting for her parents. Her terrifyingly imperious dad (the magnificent Geoffrey Whitehead, who surely should be knighted for services to both television and radio comedy) hates surprises, while her mum just wants some fun. There's an idiotic phone call involving a fake Italian accent and lots of ludicrous crosstalk.

The ultimate in middle-of-the-road British comedy, the gags on offer here are so predictable they may have you convinced you've got extrasensory perception. It's well intentioned, though, and well into its seventh outing it continues to pull in both rapturous laughter from a studio audience and healthy viewing figures. This week, Lee (Lee Mack) attempts to impress wealthy neighbours Toby and Anna (new regular cast members Hugh Dennis and Abigail Cruttenden) with some tall tales, as flatmate Lucy (Sally Bretton) plays along.

Radio Times review

Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt are the perfect hosts for this satirical minefield of a series. They have done it long enough to know when they are teetering on the edge of a brilliant gag or crossing the line into the darkest areas of BBC Compliance.

But they also have a crack production team to thank for this show's success -- it's recorded on a Thursday evening, editing starts at 9am on Friday and it's ready for broadcast at 6.30pm. And it is also a producer I have to thank for informing me that Hugh Dennis is only absent from this first show and back for programme two.

In time for the low-hanging comedic fruit of England's World Cup campaign, a return for the standard mix of mock-incredulity at everyday minutiae, repeated plunges into well-thumbed stand-up routines and hefty helpings of "epic" banter. This second episode of this new series has series mainstays Dara O'Briain, Hugh Dennis and Andy Parsons being joined by Rob Beckett, Gary Delaney, Josh Widdicombe and Sara Pascoe, the last possibly pressured to prove she's there on merit rather than due to a dictum from the BBC Trust.

Radio Times review

We're now a mighty 13 series into the topical panel show, and Dara O'Briain remains adept at shepherding his guests' reactions to the news - part effective quickfire puns, part Radio 4-friendly cleverness and, yes, part borderline offensive nonsense - into a cohesive whole.

For the comedians who stand in front of Mock the Week's lonely microphone, this isn't a bad summer in which to start a new series. As expectant silence falls around them, the World Cup, immigration rows and the build-up to the Commonwealth Games and Scottish referendum are all there to be clutched at. Tonight, regulars Andy Parsons, Hugh Dennis and our cerebral host are joined by Milton Jones, Ed Byrne and Romesh Ranganathan. Katherine Ryan is the solitary woman.

Interview: Hugh Dennis

The Outnumbered star on life as a school swot, being mistaken for a flasher, and parenting lessons from his fictional family.

Based on its initial airing this week, I hope to God that Over to Bill doesn't return as it was completely flawed from start to finish. The premise sounded promising enough as weatherman Bill Onion (Hugh Dennis) was fired from his job at the BBC and had to look for work elsewhere. His mate Jez (Neil Morrissey) promised to arrange a meeting with a powerful acquaintance but this meant that Bill had to keep his friend's horrible fiancée Selina (Helen George) on side. This wasn't easy as Selina was portrayed as a high-maintenance gold-digger who was only marrying Jez for the money he made selling his dog chewing gum idea.

I was surprised that Over to Bill was written and directed by such an experienced comedy hand as Red Dwarf's Doug Naylor because to me it felt like the work of a first-time writer. Every cliché was trotted out here from Bill accidentally drinking breast milk to him forgetting to bring a wedding gift to Jez's nuptials and having to stop at a petrol station to purchase a replacement.

In addition to the old-fashioned script, the characters were on the whole fairly unlikeable. The only exception to this rule was Bill's wife, played by the lovely Tracy-Ann Oberman, who I felt was far too good for this fool of a man. The fact that the final gag involved Bill and his wife donating bone marrow tells you all you need to know about a programme that more than suited the slot that was recently occupied by such duds as Father Figure and The Wright Way.