Lee Mack

The joker in Lee Mack

When the BBC scrapped his sitcom Not Going Out, the comedian resolved to get out more by going on tour. Then the Beeb changed its mind.

Lee Mack Interview

A regular TV face from the Noughties, 40-year-old Lee Mack no longer needs to be a circuit comedian - something that must lead to a more settled domestic life. "No," he says, "Currently our house is like a burglary site.

Lee Mack: Bobby Ball is my comedy father

Lee says: "The first thing I can remember as a sort of performance was doing Bobby Ball impressions in the playground at school."

Held over from the end of the last series, back at the start of the year, this festively themed episode of Lee Mack's likeably daft sitcom (we demand more, by the way) features Bobby Ball as Lee's estranged dad. Although this man walked out on his family when his son was only four, Lucy (Sally Bretton) thinks her flatmate should forgive and forget.

Miranda Hart, aka the dozy cleaner out of Lee Mack and Tim Vine's one-liner-thon Not Going Out, gets her own sitcom, in which she runs a joke shop - badly - and fawns over the sexy chef in the restaurant next door - badly. At first, the humour is all a bit trouser-round-the-ankles obvious but once the fabulous Sally Philips turns up as one of Miranda's toff school friends, the high levels of daffiness bludgeon us into submission.

Very slightly disappointing guests this week, although Lee Mack's team does manage to accommodate the widely differing talents of beaming West End musical star Michael Ball and sulphurous TV grump Charlie Brooker. Both are good value (Ball even makes a sly joke about drugs), but on David Mitchell's team Trinny Woodall and Reece Shearsmith seem, well, out of sorts. No matter. This show has no problem overcoming the handicap of less-than-sparkling guests to deliver a half-hour of laughs. Tonight the flights of fancy (or are they brute facts?) include Shearsmith's alleged spell working in a themed funeral parlour and Brooker's claim that he pretended to a girlfriend for six years that he was partially deaf. But crucially, do three members of the cabinet subscribe to David Mitchell's Twitter feed? And, if so, who are they? You'll have to watch to find out.

Tonight's is another ludicrously enjoyable edition of the fib-based panel show that will, if you're not very careful, have you giggling like a schoolgirl throughout. Mind you, there's an uncharacteristic lapse early on when guest panellist Sir Chris Hoy makes a claim that even by the standards of this series is clatteringly implausible. Do we for a moment buy the idea that Sir Chris was approached by Nasa to cycle on the Moon? I mean, come on. After that, truth and lies become harder to separate as we mull over whether Gabby Logan wears red underwear when she presents a show for the first time and whether Lee Mack was force-fed custard creams at school. Host Rob Brydon is on sparkling form and David Mitchell is, you won't be surprised to hear, effortlessly funny. But was the only time he ever went to a live music concert a trip to see Shirley Bassey?

The best bit this week is David Mitchell's sort-of impression of Jodie Marsh (she's a "glamour model", the one who isn't Jordan). Of course Mitchell is ill-equipped even to approximate Ms Marsh's two famously overblown assets, but he does a very decent career precis of the big-bosomed one's raison d'etre, albeit delivered in his exasperated A-level history teacher's voice. It's pretty much down to captains Mitchell and Lee Mack to keep things going, with some lacklustre guests. Jimmy Carr is impossible to like; Terry Christian is clearly baffled and well aware that he's out of his depth, to the point that you might end up feeling sorry for him; and singer Jamelia yet again inexplicably turns up on a TV panel show. Host Rob Brydon helps the show bounce along as he referees the arguments and interrogations: was Christian interrogated by police hunting a jewel thief? And did comedian Marcus Brigstocke work as a podium dancer?

At its best, Would I Lie to You? (or, endearingly, WILTY for short) has a clever way of making us genuinely torn about whether the tales the panellists tell are bizarre truths or rank fibs. Increasingly, guests use the devious double bluff - stumbling over their story or adding details that sound absurd, when it really happened. I won't say who tries that ruse tonight as it would spoil the fun, but I will say that for some reason the tall stories are a bit more guessable than usual. No matter, the show is still enjoyable, with stand-up comedian Reginald D Hunter riffing nicely on the idea that the "D" in his name stands for "Delicious", while Ken Livingstone talks authoritatively about a frog he claims to have bred that had a "prehensile", ie grabby, part of its body that you really wouldn't expect to be grabby. The normally unstoppable David Mitchell is oddly subdued, until a contretemps with Lee Mack about throwing (or possibly not) a sausage roll off Blackpool Tower gets him riled. But did Mitchell have a bell he used to ring as a child when he wanted something? And was Stephen Mangan in a prog-rock band with mystery guest Gordon, or is he in fact Mitchell's local pet-shop owner?

There are a lot of food-based fibs in tonight's breezy show. There's Fern Britton's tea, Lee Mack with his sausage rolls, Stephen Mangan talking about a Mini-Cooper full of sweets and American stand-up Reginald D Hunter, who claims that the D in his name stands for 'Delicious'. Personally, I think it's more likely to stand for 'Deadpan' - this guy's poker face is better than Lady Gaga's.

Also on tonight's show, Ken Livingstone says the word "anus" a lot. Honestly. Host Rob Brydon and team captain David Mitchell look suitably shocked.