Lee Mack

Lee Mack interview

BBC sitcom Not Going Out is back on our screens later this week, but it's not been an easy journey!

Lee Mack interview

Did the decision to axe Not Going Out hit Lee Mack hard? He said: "To a degree... you need quite a lot of time with sitcom to bed it in and I felt we were just about getting there."

The set is bedecked with ivy and gargolyles; Stephen Fry has a fez on; his four guests are wearing hooded capes. It's all because tonight, H is for hocus-pocus, a magic-themed Christmas special with the most famous wizard of them all, Daniel Radcliffe, joining the ranks of naughty pupils trying to second guess Professor Fry's fascinating facts. The show nearly comes off the rails when Lee Mack, on brilliant form, has a spelling-related set-to with the host. "Are you incapable of rational thought?" wails Fry, "You can't be that stupid!" Mack's punishment is to end the show sawn in half by Alan Davies (Radcliffe suffers worse), but before then we discover what the word "muggle" originally meant, and hear an intriguing theory about cracker jokes.

Lee Mack is the host, which means he's going "to throw as many jokes at you as possible and hope some of them work". A few do. But prefacing a gag with the revelation that not many audiences have laughed at it just isn't conducive to side-splitting laughter. He's joined by Rich Hall, the grouchy, sardonic American comedian who looks uncannily like Moe from The Simpsons and who has a penchant for political observations: for instance, he left the country with Gordon Brown in charge and when he returned it was "being led by two gay antiques dealers". Last on stage is Danny Bhoy, who's half-Scottish and half-Indian: "So unlike most Scots I don't get sunburnt from watching fireworks." Scottish humour, along with a skit about the connection between club music and cats being sick, forms the basis of his act. So something for everyone.

Portrait of the artist: Lee Mack, comedian

'Since The Office, people think that comedy is only good if it reflects the way that people really speak. Nonsense'

Lee Mack interview

His stand-up tour won acclaim far and wide earlier this year. And as it arrives on DVD, Lee Mack spares some time to talk about comedy, and the return of Not Going Out...

Lee Mack talks gags, gigs and lobsters

Lee Mack joins Richard Allinson to talk about his latest tour, playing to single-digit audiences, the return of his sitcom, Not Going Out and the perils of including a lobster in your routine.

Video: Susanna Reid flummoxed by Lee Mack gag

Lee Mack's approaching the end of a 120-date tour, but as well as that he's returning to our screens in the New Year in the BBC One sitcom Not Going Out for which he wrote the script while on tour.

Lee discussed the tour with BBC Breakfast and described the best heckle, which needed some explaining to Susanna...

This stand-up show from 2007 will come as a surprise to those whose only exposure to Lee Mack is in sitcom Not Going Out or as team captain on Would I Lie to You? The physicality of his on-stage persona feels as if the comedian regularly seen behind a panel-show desk has been let off the lead for the night and the result is riotous and very funny. Early on, he borrows a pair of glasses and breaks into an impression of Eric Morecambe. But there's more here than just quick one-liners and clever wordplay. The spontaneity in his interactions with audience members is impressive ("You're a plumber? Nice of you to turn up") and somehow his sheer cheek never ends up feeling malicious.