Lee Mack

Lee Mack: How to eat well after a gig

Lee Mack explains precisely how to get the best out of any menu.

Stewart Lee declared he's "not the cheeky chappy next door" in response to criticism from the likes of fellow comic Lee Mack who accused him of being part of the "Oxbridge mafia".

"I'm not the cheeky chappy next door," declared Stewart Lee helpfully at the top of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (BBC Two), just in case we were in any doubt. And what a relief that was from the faux mateyness of clichéd panel game banter, the safe zone of popular comedy. Lee's sour chops are the perfect antidote to a world that's pathologically pleased with itself.

Lee's shtick hovers on the grumpy git line but rarely crosses it: he communicates a restless disillusion with the state of things without coming off as a terminal pessimist. His rebuttal of fellow comedian

Lee Mack's claim that he "couldn't cut the mustard" on a panel show - "you don't cut mustard, you spread i"' - was a priceless piece of tongue-in-cheek, prompted by Mack's reference to Lee as a "cultural bully from the Oxbridge mafia".

Lee's riposte was an exercise in neatly judged apathy: "What have I ever done to him? Nothing." It undercut the idea that panel shows are comedy's Holy Grail rather than scripted easy paycheques.

The second episode is even better, Lee building an entire 15-minute rant around a taxi driver's (alleged) off-the-cuff remark to him that "these days you get arrested and thrown into jail if you say you're English, don't you?"

Alleged? Not content to undermine the absurdity of that casual racism, Lee gleefully undermined his own reputation, floating the idea that he fictionalises the folk bigotry of taxi drivers to suit his own nefarious punchlines. It's comedy that makes you stop and think, and there's not enough of it about.

Radio Times review

Stewart Lee is a stand-up who doesn't do stand-up. He doesn't tell gags; often he isn't very funny. Fellow comedians hate him - he's pleased with Lee Mack's description of him as a "cultural bully from the Oxbridge Mafia" and he's regularly denounced on Twitter as "fat" and "depressed-looking" and much, much worse.

So he's an acquired taste. I like him, though I don't know why, possibly because he's astute and clever. He takes the Twitter loathing and turns it around, pulping the social network site and its users as "a state surveillance agency staffed by gullible volunteers... it's the Stasi for the Angry Birds generation". If you don't laugh at that, then possibly this show isn't for you.

Radio Times review

You've tittered at QI. You've guffawed at Would I Lie to You? So how will your sides cope with a brazen fusion of both formats?

That's obviously the thinking behind this derivative panel show, in which Lee Mack asks a team of celebrity guests to provide hard evidence for their seemingly outlandish claims. This week's unlikely facts include: dogs can "catch" their owners' yawns; shrimps are fitter than humans; and an adult male will never be shorter than his mother.

Padded out with pop-science facts, whimsical practical tests and based in a weirdly cramped, overly busy set - it looks like it's filmed in a stationary drawer - it has the whiff of a project cobbled together during a busy executive lunch. But it passes the time affably.

Mack's guests are Olivia Colman, Rhod Gilbert and Paul Hollywood, who gamely leaves his Bake Off comfort zone to see if it's possible to scale a wall using household vacuum cleaners.

Approach any panel show that promises to put "wacky" facts to the test with caution. In this new series, host Lee Mack is joined by a celebrity panel comprising Ruth Jones, Dara O'Briain and Mel C, who brings to the table her claim that dog wee glows under UV light. Fortunately, a cute pack of puppies are on hand to test that particular theory. There are light laughs to be had and a few surprising titbits to be learned, and Mel C gets glued to the ceiling, so it's all quite entertaining, really.

Radio Times review

Lee Mack is a past master at the panel show game, but his new show is a very different beast from Would I Lie to You? It's a much looser, far less competitive affair in which guests propose some unbelievable facts - eg touching anyone's upper arm will help you get what you want from them - which are then put to the test.

Today's guests are Dara O'Briain, Ruth Jones and Melanie C, whose suggestions afford Mack the opportunity to show off his quicksilver wit - as well as the obligatory gag about the Spice Girls, he also deduces that the inside of Jones's mind is like a Disney film.

The best bits are those impromptu moments: Mack riffing about the baldness of a stagehand and an unexpected camera shot a lesser man would have left on the cutting-room floor.

Radio Times review

Sometimes this show works a sort of reverse magic and normally witty guests come across as whingeing sticks-in-the-mud. There's something about having to explain why you hate some aspect of modern life that makes everyone into a variant of Victor Meldrew if you're not careful. Tonight even the reliably droll Lee Mack teeters on the edge of curmudgeonliness as he rails against cars and kids parties, but of course he recovers his wits.

Meanwhile, Ruby Wax's mother sounds maddening, but can you really consign you own mum to Room 101? The audience sound doubtful. Most diverting part of the show: the tale of Dave Myers' alopecia. No wonder he hates wigs.

Review: Duck Quacks Don't Echo, Sky 1

Lee Mack's new panel show about improbable facts needs more substance to support the jokes.

Lee Mack reveals the shows he's said no to

"There was one show I was asked to do where you had to jump off a diving board and into a swimming pool..."

Lee Mack Q&A

'I feel like I'm only two days away from collecting trolleys in a carpark'.