Lee Mack

Comedians ribbing each other about far-fetched tales - it's what Friday-night telly was made for. And this week's gathering of deceivers and doubters may be the sharpest yet. Joining chalk-and-cheese team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack are Ruth Jones (of Gavin & Stacey fame), Jason Manford (The One Show) and comedians Jack Dee and Peter Serafinowicz. In short, every one's a winner. Tonight's best round involves a mystery guest called Ian. The question is, did he save Jones's tortoise from death, sell batteries to David Mitchell via eBay, or get attacked by schoolchildren alongside Manford? Finding out is a blast. Plus there's a new round where host Rob Brydon has a go at fooling the teams himself. But did he really once steal Catherine Zeta-Jones's dinner money?

There's a whole clutch of matey comedians, including Rob Brydon and Lee Mack, who seem to do nothing much except appear in various combinations on comedy panel shows like this. Would I Lie to You?, however, an update on Call My Bluff, is the most enjoyable format. David Mitchell and Ruth Jones also appear - their trick seems to be to tell their tall stories with deceptive incompetence, which is why the biggest-seeming lies turn out to be true - except for when they don't.

Jonathan Ross's old slot is taken up this week by the fourth series of this jovial comedy panel show - a safe play by the BBC, as they figure out how best to plug the gap left by Ross. It's hosted by Rob Brydon, and tonight features Fern Britton, Richard E Grant, Martin Clunes and Sanjeev Bhaskar alongside regular captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack, as the two teams attempt to fool each other into believing a series of plausible lies.

The best factoid in this show is that when he appeared in an episode of Inspector Morse, Martin Clunes deliberately called him "Cheese Inspector". That's not even one of the fibs in this week's show - it's just one of the inbetween bits of banter that gets chucked in for free. And the return of this series ratchets up the laughter quotient of Friday nights on the BBC (and Martin Clunes' career, come to that) by roughly four million per cent.

It makes you realise that all those years Clunes has spent stomping around ­Cornwall as the grumpy Doc Martin, pretending to be Reggie Perrin or making ­documentaries about dogs have been a waste of his talents. What he should really have been doing is spending his time larking about with his mates on comedy panel shows because I've never seen him enjoy himself as much as he does here.

It all adds up to a brilliant start to the series with team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack conjuring perfect comebacks out of thin air. Host Rob Brydon's impromptu impersonations add an extra coat of comedy emulsion to an already ­sparkling format. Tonight's other guests, Richard E Grant and Sanjeev Bhaskar put on their best butter-wouldn't-melt faces as they swear blind that they once rear-ended Michael Winner and made a hip-hop Hamlet. And is Fern Britton really a secret Morris Dancer?

Lee Mack vs Charlie Brooker on So Wrong It's Right

So Wrong It's Right is the radio show hosted by Charlie Brooker in which his guests must try to "out-wrong each other". In tonight's episode he is joined by Tom Basden, Josie Long and Lee Mack - and it's with Lee that things get a little... heated.

Incredibly, this is the 20th anniversary and the 39th series of the BBC's flagship entertainment programme - the only entertainment programme that is consistently and genuinely entertaining. Paul Merton's unstoppable flow of surreal invention never seems to dry up, while Ian Hislop must be one of the few people on the planet who can appear on television suffering from a burst appendix and still manage to be funny. With an election looming, the big challenge of the new series - according to Richard Wilson, head of comedy at the production company Hat Trick - will be "to take the spectacularly dull things that politicians say and get laughs out of them". The host tonight is Lee Mack, with Alexander Armstrong and Jo Brand booked to appear later in the run.

On a Thursday? Are schedulers messing with our minds? Is this an April fool? Since time immemorial Have I Got News for You has been a fixture of Friday nights, like crowds outside pubs and kebabs on the pavement. It boots us into the weekend with a flurry of vicious wit, surreal satire and cheap jokes at the expense of John Prescott's figure. It's our pressure valve on the end of the working week, allowing the nation to let off steam and laugh at our betters, while wondering where Paul Merton gets his I'm-wearing-this-for-a-joke shirts and noting the steady advance of Ian Hislop's chins. To plant it on a Thursday seems like sacrilege, until you remember that tomorrow is Good Friday, so the weekend sort of starts here. Let's hope series 39, which starts with Lee Mack at the helm, can keep up the standards.

Lee Mack interview

One of the UK's most beloved stand-ups, Lee Mack talks to Time Out about bonding with the audience and why he's so prone to weird heckles.

Interview: Lee Mack

"I'm trying to get my own variety series off the ground, which I'm doing a pilot for. It's early doors but I would be presenting my own show as opposed to being in a sitcom. I don't know what it is yet, but basically it's a variety show with a bit of stand up and sketches and that's what I'm trying to develop."

Return of the Mack

When I say 'Lee Mack's not going out', I'm not just giving you the title of his award-winning sitcom, but also a statement about his hectic schedule.