Lee Mack

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.

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.

The start of a second series for Frank Skinner's topical comedy show, which consists of Frank and two comedians chatting about the week's news.

It must have been a good idea, because ITV almost replicated it (minus comedians) when they enlisted another chap from the West Midlands, Adrian Chiles, to front That Sunday Night Show which finished last month.

Frank's guests this week are Lee Mack and Miranda Hart who have both done the show before and can be relied on to squeeze laughs out of almost anything.

As with all panel shows, the best stuff doesn't come out of the news itself but from all the chat in between - and with world events being a mixture of doom, gloom and apocalypse that's probably just as well.

Frank Skinner's heyday might have been during the lad-mag Nineties, but as the first series of this topical comedy show reminded us, he is a more interesting and in some ways more old-fashioned entertainer than that. He has matured into a witty and surprisingly wry host, and the BBC has signed Opinionated up for two more series, the first of which begins tonight. His guests, Lee Mack and Miranda Hart, are likely to be gently amusing but solidly uncontroversial.

Episodes staring Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig (both from Green Wing) tells the story of two of successful British comedy writers trying to translate their award winning show to an American audience. Various US TV executives plug in to the process with their ideas of what the public want and how to Americanis(z)e the show, which includes the casting of Friends favourite Matt LeBlanc in the original role. The idea, on paper, is sensational but it's a shame this doesn't quite transfer into practice.

While it was engaging enough to stay tuned until the end, the laughs were few and far between. The concept was in the Gervais-Merchant-esque mould: a form of 'reality comedy' which does cause derision amongst the UK comedy hierarchy - Lee Mack for one isn't a fan - but this one was just a bit wanting in all areas.

The show has been left dangling, hinting at another series, on an interesting cliff hanger, however at this stage it's hard to tell where exactly a second series could go. For my money, the major funny areas of conversion have been covered. While it was an interesting experiment, in the end the true test of comedy is always laughter, and I'm sad to say Episodes lacked a good shot of that.

Club profiles: The Comedy Store

Lee Mack summed it up when he said: "The Comedy Store is the gig that every comedian wants." Emma McAlpine talks to owner Don Ward about the club that changed British comedy forever.