Lee Mack

'Lee Mack's All Star Cast' attracts 4.2m

Lee Mack's new BBC One show launched with almost 4.2m viewers on Saturday evening, while ITV1's The Marriage Ref failed to impress, according to overnight audience data.

In the unforgettable words of the Eagles, this could be heaven, or this could be hell; a Saturday night variety show that promises to "make stars of the audience". But wait! Lee Mack, a gifted, thinkson- his-feet stand-up and the funniest man on TV, is master of this particular carnival, and he's as far away from any egregious Mr Variety as you can get. The show is recorded just days before transmission, so it's still an unknown quantity, though a very brief taster tape from the pilot episode provides some clues, notably that Mack is the best thing about All Star Cast. He holds everything together brilliantly, even if it is a curious mixture of celebrity interviews (conducted by Mack), music, stand-up and comedy sketches with guests, which are notoriously difficult to get right. There's also a weird little interlude called "Famous for Fifteen Seconds", where members of the viewing public are invited to show us their party piece. In the pilot, it's a cheerful man from Gloucester who sings Summer Holiday backwards. Yes, really.

Lee Mack, the comic and star of the sitcom Not Going Out, gets his own vehicle. It's a glorified chat show with celebrity guests, stand-up, sketch and musical acts - starting tonight with James Blunt. The gimmick is that the studio audience and viewers at home are invited to take part too. Mack makes amusing company but it's rather Graham Norton lite, and, similarly to John Bishop's Britain, which went out in the same slot, feels like a comedian carrying a slightly awkward format.

Lee Mack 'winces at early Not Going Out'

Lee Mack has admitted that he struggles to watch early episodes of his sitcom Not Going Out.

A quick chat with Lee Mack

Not Going Out's Lee Mack is your host for Lee Mack's All Star Cast, BBC1's new Saturday-night mix of stand-up, music, celebrity guests and sketches, complete with audience participation.

Lee Mack interview

Lee Mack is hosting a new entertainment series for Saturday nights. But he's keeping his guest list a surprise...

Australia's Got Talent contestant stole Lee Mack jokes

A comic battling to win Australia's Got Talent faces an uncertain future after he was accused of ripping off a UK comedian's routine.

An interview with Rob Rouse

Rob Rouse is a comedian who, along with Dylan Moran, Lee Mack, Phil Kay, and many others, has won the annual So You Think You're Funny award - which was the just the beginning of a similarly acclaimed career.

Panel-gamers Kevin Bridges, Jason Manford and Lee Mack are Matt Lucas's guests tonight, nominating things that are the most or best something, for comic effect. Many of the observations are established classics such as British tennis players being disappointing, or Taggart being dead. The laughs sneak through the cracks between the formatted spiels: tonight there's a good riff around Lucas's chocolate obsession, and it generally helps that the host is a fearsome comic performer. By far the funniest moment is Lucas's anecdote about a barney in a Scottish newsagent's, where he switches between Indian and Glaswegian accents with dizzying skill.