Lee Mack

Why do they do it? MPs who appear on BBC's Have I Got News For You, I mean.

Conservative Peter Bone was the latest to enter the lion's den and receive a mauling, with an old headline dragged up accusing him of being "Britain's meanest boss" for paying a trainee 87p an hour, and then just as predictably contrasted with another story that he employs his wife as one of the best-paid secretaries in the House of Commons.

It all made for toe-curling viewing as he floundered. But he's hardly alone - off the top of my head I can recall fellow Tory MP Michael Fabricant, former UKIP member Godfrey Bloom (the one who said women who didn't clean behind the fridge were "sluts") and Labour's then defence secretary Bob Ainsworth all making similar gruesome appearances. In every case, vanity triumphs over caution. Boris and Nigel Farage are the only two politicians who can remotely pull off such stunts.

One further point: the Beeb's decision to run its other comedy quiz Would I Lie To You? directly before HIGNFY is a particularly cruel piece of scheduling. The former show, thanks to team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell and host Rob Brydon, is as sharp as a tack and laugh out loud; messrs Hislop and Merton's effort, by contrast, now looks creaking and dated.

Radio Times review

Miles Jupp joins David Mitchell's team tonight. Yes, Jupp and Mitchell, side by side at last - it's like a posh-comic supergroup. At one stage, as Mitchell is in the midst of a typically heated interrogation of an opponent, Jupp turns to him and murmurs, "David, even if you don't believe him, you don't need to be angry about it." At which Mitchell yells, "I'm trying to break him!"

Jupp also tells a brilliant story about having to tell neighbours that their cat had died, while he himself happened to have his face painted as a kitten. But in the end, it's one of those episodes that Lee Mack carries almost single-handed. When he's on this form, there's no one quicker.

Review: Lee Mack

Lee Mack is not just fast though, he is high-energy and high-tempo, easily excited and suddenly aggressive.

Radio Times review

This show's teams are so quick and on-the-comedy-ball, some guests barely get a look in. In this edition, it's Adil Ray - of Citizen Khan - who takes a back seat as the likes of Bob Mortimer and Lee Mack steer the WILTY charabanc to unlikely places.

Mortimer is on great form, making out that as a teenager he was banished from Castle Douglas for frightening the locals. As he piles on implausible details (a friend called Steve Bytheway, latex masks, and so on) with a straight face, you can't help feeling he's taken his flight of fancy too far. Or is it the old trick of elaborating an anecdote to make it sound ridiculous?

Also peddling tall tales are Kian Egan from Westlife, who may or may not have bid for his own waxwork, and Mel Giedroyc with, suitably enough, a cake-based story. It involves David Bowie.

Review: Lee Mack: Hit The Road Mack

Lee Mack, who paces the stage with an impatient urgency, is unapologetic in his showmanship. He's a gag-man, too, with a generous supply of quotable one-liners, normally prefaced by a disingenuous assertion that what you're about to hear is 100 per cent true.

Lee Mack show prompts angry mum to demand age limit

A mum wants age restrictions brought in for comedian Lee Mack's shows after she took her 14-year-old daughter to see him at The Hawth and his warm-up act started cracking jokes about paedophilia.

Review: Lee Mack - Hit the Road Mack

Pacing the stage like a caged animal, it wasn't hard to see why he's among the best comedians working in the UK today. Lee Mack does a great job of creating comedy waves, and then surfing the crest.

Lee Mack review

Lee Mack has many good gags but gives little of himself away.

The tall stories (some true, some not) comedy panel show returns for an eighth series. Its longevity has much to do with the way host Rob Brydon, plus team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell, get close to the knuckle without taking things too far for primetime, a tricky balancing act when Mitchell discusses the lead-up to an alleged vomiting incident ("There was definitely drinking, I think there might have been crisps ... "). First guests are Fiona Bruce, Micky Flanagan, Steve Jones and Claudia Winkleman.

Radio Times review

Host Rob Brydon and team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack return for series eight of the jolly panel show that tests the fibbing skills of celebrity teams. In this opening episode Micky Flanagan is the sole comedian guest, alongside TV presenters (of one form or other) Fiona Bruce, Claudia Winkleman and Steve Jones.

Did Flanagan liven up a hen do by taking his clothes off? Does Fiona Bruce dream about monkeys? And did Steve Jones once save rapper P Diddy's life? It may be inspired by elements from other panel shows (Call My Bluff and the mystery guest element from They Think It's All Over being the most obvious), but thanks in large part to the wit and repartee of the three regulars, the fun is infectious.