
Lee Mack
- 56 years old
- English
- Actor, writer and stand-up comedian
Press clippings Page 26
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.
Alison Graham, Radio Times, 31st October 2014Radio Times review
Occasionally you have to wonder at WILTY?'s booking process. I mean, if you were searching for a quick-witted guest with a sharp sense of humour, would you immediately come up with the name of bushcraft expert Ray Mears? In fact he acquits himself very well, especially considering he's sitting alongside fiercely comic guests such as Jo Brand. She comes up with a ridiculous story about hitch-hiking down to the coast on Christmas Day that could be the basis of a Tarantino film as well as one about squeezing through an ex-boyfriend's dog flap. Both will make you cry with laughter.
Once again the best exchanges are between the peerless Lee Mack and David Mitchell. Carried away with his tale about a fox (illustrated beautifully by Rob Brydon doing an impersonation of Basil Brush), Lee says something that David pounces on with almost Poirot-like powers of deduction. It's very impressive.
Make the most of tonight's edition as WILTY? is taking a break for a few weeks.
Jane Rackham, Radio Times, 24th October 2014Radio 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.
Alison Graham, Radio Times, 24th October 2014Lee Mack live review
It's a brave stand-up comedian whose encore is to invite questions from a crowd that has been, up until now, notably restless.
Frances Taylor, Digital Spy, 24th October 2014Review: Lee Mack, Eventim Apollo
Amiable comic races through a disappointing set.
Veronica Lee, The Arts Desk, 23rd October 2014Lee Mack review
Lee Mack miraculously bridges the gap between alternative and mainstream, even if at times he is a whisker away from mother-in-law material.
Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard, 21st October 2014Lee Mack review
This is comedy that time forgot - meticulous, gag-heavy tomfoolery with a great sense of attack.
Brian Logan, The Guardian, 20th October 2014It's a new series for the gag-heavy sitcom starring and co-written by Lee Mack. Lee and Lucy's night at the cinema ends in a mugging at the hands of a teen gang, and they make away with Lucy's bag (containing mostly knitting). The incident, in which Lee is utterly useless, plunges him into a crisis of his own masculinity. He joins a boxing gym and takes on a trainer, with predictably terrible results. Even when the plot feels a little thin - as here - the one-liners are still pretty solid.
Bim Adewunmi, The Guardian, 17th October 2014Radio Times review
Uber-loafer and all-round northern waster Lee (Lee Mack) feels a direct attack on his manhood when his flatmate Lucy is mugged by a group of young thugs. Lee watches helplessly as they flee with her handbag, and decides he must prove himself as a real man.
As a new series starts, Not Going Out doesn't deviate from its standard, winning formula. And why should it? What it does, it does brilliantly. Gags are carefully set up, you can see them coming, but when they hit, you laugh. Simple. Of course all of this is made special by Lee Mack, probably the best gag-man on television, and a proper comedian who is funny to his bone marrow.
But let's also give a cheer to his wonderfully dry foil, Sally Bretton as Lucy, who heroically feeds Lee with his jokes, while also slapping down his doomed attempts at self-improvement.
Alison Graham, Radio Times, 17th October 2014Lee Mack returns for a new series of Not Going Out and this time it's personal - he's character has managed to work his way onto TV.
Appearing in an episode of BBC quiz show Pointless, it doesn't take much for quizmaster Richard Osman to work him out.
In the video above Osman says: "We pre-record these so you're not going to look like an idiot for two or three weeks."
We're not sure how well Lee does on Pointless, the BBC One programme which gives its contestant a chance to score as little as possible, but we know it will be entertaining.
The sitcom, which follows the jokes, jibes and general misunderstandings of happy-go-lucky Lee and his friends returns on Friday.
Episode one of series seven is called 'Mugging' - when Lucy has her handbag stolen from right under Lee's nose, he feels the need to prove his manliness over and over and over again.
Danny Walker, The Mirror, 16th October 2014