Lee Mack

Most sitcoms have done away with a studio audience but Not Going Out remains touchingly old-fashioned. If you're used to the natural feel of Gavin & Stacey or Outnumbered, it takes a few moments to acclimatise to the studio lights and set-up/gag/set-up/gag rhythms of Not Going Out, but it's worth it: the jokes are lovingly crafted and nobody could accuse Lee Mack of not knowing how to deliver a zinger. Mack plays hopeless big-kid Lee, whose long-held crush on his landlady Lucy isn't helped by the fact that she is the sister of his best friend, Tim (Tim Vine). Tonight's opener for series three undermines the trad format with a gleefully off-colour, not to say X-rated, storyline: Lucy thinks she's pregnant and Lee is worried he may have helped get her that way, although exactly how doesn't bear too much thinking about.

Lee Mack's sitcom about an amiable drifter infatuated with his beautiful landlady is back for a third series, and it still has a lot going for it. The characters are still likeable; the relationships are well defined and many of the quickfire gags hit the spot. But, for all its qualities, it is difficult nowadays to enjoy a comedy that relies on the bullying sound of laughter. It feels as though the viewer is being nagged and prodded by a manic nanny: "This a joke! Laugh at this!" It is worse than unnecessary - it spoils it.

Lee Mack returns for a new series as the wise-cracking lodger who seems to have nothing better to do than make fun of the cleaner and hang out with his landlady's brother.

Apart from the inconvenient fact that Lee Mack isn't gay, Not Going Out almost reminds you of a British Will And Grace. The rat-a-tat gags and setup of unlikely flatmates might be as artificially manufactured and as full of dodgy additives as a market stall hamburger, but you can't get enough of it.

As series three opens tonight, Lee is pondering the urban myth about whether it's possible for a woman to get pregnant from bath water. Why? Well, his landlady Lucy (Sally Bretton) is mysteriously up the duff and there can only be one, disgusting, explanation. As Lee and best mate Tim (Tim Vine) consider the grim implications, the jokes come from all directions. Plus, we discover another reason why Lee is so keen to stay in the flat. Never mind that he fancies Lucy - the bathroom is amazing.

Some sitcoms just won't go away, and so it is with Not Going Out, starring Lee Mack as Lee, who just never found the time to grow up on take on any adult responsibilities. Thing is, you can't help but like Not Going Out, for all its down at heel, old fashioned, studio-bound feel. It's certainly a cut above the now-defunct After You've Gone and woeful Life of Riley, and Mack, who serves as scriptwriter, is well versed in constructing intricate gags with a good payoff. Go on, give it a look. You might like it.

Lee Mack Interview

Sitcom writer and stand-up Lee Mack tells The Independent the secrets of being funny on TV.

Lee Mack, who plays the lead in the BBC sitcom Not Going Out, takes to the stage in London for an hour of stand-up. He's a polished, exuberantly confident performer with a gift for physical comedy reminiscent of Lee Evans.

Get Angus Deayton to chair it, get David Mitchell and Lee Mack as team captains and Bob's your uncle. Or is he?

Tonight's possible whoppers in what is very sadly the last in a howlingly successful series include the notion that when David was little he used to dress himself as an 18th century nobleman.

Possibly even funnier is his rant at team-mate Michael McIntyre for inadvertently helping the other side by asking the wrong sort of questions.

They've also cunningly managed to shoe-horn in an astounding clip of the oddball art of bottom reading. It has very little to do with anything but it's so funny, who cares about details like that?

The format may be derivative, but team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack are such masters of their (admittedly rather specific) craft that the BBC could broadcast footage of them sitting together on a park bench, bickering like an old married couple, and I'd happily watch it.

The team leaders on this Call My Bluff-style show - Lee Mack and David Mitchell - are on sensationally good form. Unassuming and immensely accomplished, once again it is the comic highlight of the week. Honestly.