Lee Mack

WILTY remains fresh enough to stake a claim as the funniest panel show on TV.

It helps that the team captains are perfect in their roles, each bringing a specific style of humour to proceedings: David Mitchell's logical dissection of someone's story can sometimes get wearisome, but usually it's a delight to see him analyse things with such comical scrutiny; while opponent Lee Mack plays looser with the rules and manages to create a feeling of uncertainty because he adopts a level of ineptness in his truth-telling that might sometimes be a double-bluff. There's also comedy mined from how middle-class southerner Mitchell and working class northerner Mack (now that's a double-act name, Robert Webb!) are from different backgrounds and upbringings.

The only problem facing WILTY is that, as time goes on, you wonder if Mitchell and Mack will run out of stories that are sufficiently funny/bizarre enough to sound false. Not that the show relies on their stories alone, but I hope they each have good anecdotes left to squeeze out before everything they say becomes a lie because they've exhausted the truth. This is a problem that doesn't affect the rotation of guests, thankfully.

Now in its sixth series, WILTY? remains fresh enough to stake a claim as the funniest panel show on TV. This is probably because it's more of a parlour gameshow than most others in the genre-which are often quiz-based because it's easier to attach scripted jokes to that format. WILTY?'s more like Call My Bluff, only with humorous anecdotes replacing esoteric words. Two teams of three celebrities tell each other personal stories (sometimes with the aid of props) in order to trick the opposing side into thinking the yarn is gospel truth or a barefaced lie. More often than not, this makes for a highly amusing half-hour of trickery and repartee.

It helps that the team captains are perfect in their roles, each bringing a specific style of humour to proceedings: David Mitchell's logical dissection of someone's story can sometimes get wearisome, but usually it's a delight to see him analyse things with such comical scrutiny; while opponent Lee Mack plays looser with the rules and manages to create a feeling of uncertainty because he adopts a level of ineptness in his truth-telling that might sometimes be a double-bluff. There's also comedy mined from how middle-class southerner Mitchell and working class northerner Mack (now that's a double-act name, Robert Webb!) are from different backgrounds and upbringings.

The only problem facing WILTY? is that, as time goes on, you wonder if Mitchell and Mack will run out of stories that are sufficiently funny/bizarre enough to work. Not that the show relies on their stories alone, but I hope they each have good anecdotes left to squeeze out before everything they say becomes a lie because they've exhausted the truth. This is a problem that doesn't affect the rotation of guests, thankfully.

Lee Mack has nude scenes in new series of Not Going Out

Fans will be seeing a lot more of Lee Mack in the new series of Not Going Out.

Back for a well-deserved fifth series, Lee Mack and his co-stars are set to give your jaws another high intensity workout with an episode that packs so many laughs into each minute, the EU should probably slap a health warning on it.

All I need tell you about this week's episode is that Tim (Tim Vine) has joined a rock band - a concept so horrible and unlikely that it needs to be seen with your own eyes.

Lee's jealous that the guitarist fancies Lucy and has even written a song for her, but he's written a few lyrics of his own, too.

You know that gorgeous love song on Britain's Got Talent recently?

Lee's is even better than that. Why? Well, this one rhymes Lucy with Zanussi.

If you were thinking Friday nights had become a little joyless lately, here's good news. The best panel shows around are back to make BBC1's end-of-week comedy desert bloom again.

First, Rob Brydon wheels his festival of half-truths, fantasy and implausible facts back into view. It's in a new, pre-watershed time slot, which means some of the more colourful exchanges between team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell will be reined in. But their exaggerated oik/toff banter should still be one of the funniest things on TV.

Friday nights are Lee Mack night, with Would I Lie to You? and the return of this endearingly silly sitcom, an unashamedly old-fashioned half-hour of daft gags, smut, wisecracks and wordplay. Mack plays a version of himself, the world's worst flatmate, Lee: an ageing slacker who's in (undeclared) love with his comely landlady, Lucy (Sally Bretton).

Lucy's dull financial adviser brother Tim (Tim Vine) has joined a rock band, the Auditors, and his supporters are out in force. But his onstage banter is painful, leading Lee to observe: "Somewhere, in a parallel universe, Alice Cooper is advising someone about the advantages of a cash ISA."

It's the new series of Lee Mack's pun-tastic, guilty pleasure sitcom. And there are a few improvements: Lucy, the put-upon landlady who is forever the apple of Lee's eye, has had her edges softened; and Katy Wix is given better material to work with as Tim Vine's dappy girlfriend. To kick off, Vine looks endearingly ridiculous as he decides to join a band.

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