Lee Mack

Review: Lee Mack

Lee Mack tells stories of his life, like the best northern comedians, but it was the way he came up with killer lines in response to the crowd that showed off his true star quality.

Radio Times review

Pointless's Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman guest-star as themselves when Lee and Daisy appear on the blockbuster BBC One/z] daytime quiz show.

Of course there are two big hurdles - Lee (Lee Mack) knows nothing about anything and Daisy (Katy Wix) is so exquisitely stupid she thinks that The Prisoner of Azkaban is a book of the Bible.

This is the perfect comedy set-up and they both fall headfirst into every comic trap that's been carefully built for them, from Lee's woeful knowledge of American presidents to Daisy's pathological insistence on taking absolutely everything she is told, literally (Wix is brilliant, by the way).

Armstrong and Osman have some fun, too, with Armstrong twinkling and flirting with Lee and Daisy's friend Lucy, and Osman becoming a gimlet-eyed avenger when he sees right through a craven Lee.

This week's new live comedy

Previews of Lee Mack, Susan Calman and Sam Simmons.

Lee Mack review

I loved this show and have never laughed so much, leaving the Edinburgh Playhouse on a high and with one certain thought in my mind - that I will certainly return to see Lee Mack next time he graces us with his presence in Edinburgh. Good luck with the rest of the tour.

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

"Quinoa, fennel and ramekins [are] the names of your future children."

This is what is yelled by slacker Lee (Lee Mack), who's hopelessly drunk at a society party and furious at the company of his and Lucy's humourless, dull neighbours.

Of course, no one in their right mind would ever invite someone so socially inept to such a do, so the road is paved for Lee to get hammered and reveal his working-class roots at full, outraged volume: "I am scum! I've got a bag for life from Greggs!" Poor, long-suffering Lucy (Sally Bretton), all she wanted to do was widen her circle of friends...

Comedy review: Lee Mack

With relatively little fanfare, Lee Mack has risen to become one of the UK's most popular comics.

Radio Times review

If you like your smut applied not with a trowel but with a cement mixer, then you're going to be in heaven as the innuendo- and entendre-festooned gags simply don't stop.

The supply is inexhaustible because slacker Lee (Lee Mack) is at the epicentre of that beloved comedy set-up, the bloke donating his sperm. You might have to cover your ears and put granny in the porch for half an hour when the long-suffering Lucy, desperate for a baby, asks her friend and flatmate to help her.

It will surprise no one to learn that the opportunity to crack that old chestnut "pull out at the last minute" is given an airing in an episode that's as coarse as cardboard.

Radio Times review

Lee is the kind of man who, when he's in a hole, doesn't stop digging, he just goes on to plough another hole, and then another one, and then another one...

He's almost buried alive in tonight's comedy of errors as he unwittingly manages to get himself and Lucy (Sally Bretton) invited to a christening party by the baby's very reluctant parents.

TV dad par excellence Hugh Outnumbered Dennis is the baby's father, a picture of quiet exasperation as Lee (Lee Mack) and Lucy's doomed attempts to buy a suitable present for his son spiral into madness.

It's all tremendously silly and contrived, of course, to an almost palm-sweating level, but Mack, Bretton and Katy Wix as dim Daisy keep it bobbing along.