Sally Bretton

Not Going Out could return as a "family sitcom"

Lee Mack's long-running BBC One show could continue in a new guise, reveals star Sally Bretton: "Watch this space"

Sally Bretton interview

Sally Bretton, star of the BBC sitcom Not Going Out, likes to fly under the radar of fame - and that includes two names, a guarded private life and a body double.

Radio Times review

And you thought Not Going Out ended for good last Christmas when hopeless slacker Lee actually did the right thing for once and married the long-suffering Lucy.

But no, everyone is back for a special episode with a festive theme. A year on from the wedding and Lucy (Sally Bretton) is heavily pregnant, three days overdue with her and Lee's first baby. But the poor woman can't simply put her feet up and await the birth, she and Lee (Lee Mack) are embroiled in a hold-up at a department store. Their captor is Father Christmas himself.

All of the regulars return, including the estimable Katy Wix as dopey Daisy, and the gag count is as high as ever.

Radio Times review

A peach of a series finale, running in real time with Lee Mack in his favourite spot at the bar throughout. Lucy (Sally Bretton) is on her way to a restaurant for a job interview, and if she gets the role she'll be leaving for good. So Lee and Toby (Hugh Dennis) ponder life for Lee without Lucy. Should he run next door and hammer on the window, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate? Can he even admit he loves her?

The show's detractors say it's just a heap of puns with no soul. Not tonight. The underlying theme of the lackadaisical joker using silliness as a defence mechanism is blown open. Yet the gags - and there are many brilliant ones - never, ever stop.

The ultimate in middle-of-the-road British comedy, the gags on offer here are so predictable they may have you convinced you've got extrasensory perception. It's well intentioned, though, and well into its seventh outing it continues to pull in both rapturous laughter from a studio audience and healthy viewing figures. This week, Lee (Lee Mack) attempts to impress wealthy neighbours Toby and Anna (new regular cast members Hugh Dennis and Abigail Cruttenden) with some tall tales, as flatmate Lucy (Sally Bretton) plays along.

Radio Times review

"Quinoa, fennel and ramekins [are] the names of your future children."

This is what is yelled by slacker Lee (Lee Mack), who's hopelessly drunk at a society party and furious at the company of his and Lucy's humourless, dull neighbours.

Of course, no one in their right mind would ever invite someone so socially inept to such a do, so the road is paved for Lee to get hammered and reveal his working-class roots at full, outraged volume: "I am scum! I've got a bag for life from Greggs!" Poor, long-suffering Lucy (Sally Bretton), all she wanted to do was widen her circle of friends...

Radio Times review

Lee is the kind of man who, when he's in a hole, doesn't stop digging, he just goes on to plough another hole, and then another one, and then another one...

He's almost buried alive in tonight's comedy of errors as he unwittingly manages to get himself and Lucy (Sally Bretton) invited to a christening party by the baby's very reluctant parents.

TV dad par excellence Hugh Outnumbered Dennis is the baby's father, a picture of quiet exasperation as Lee (Lee Mack) and Lucy's doomed attempts to buy a suitable present for his son spiral into madness.

It's all tremendously silly and contrived, of course, to an almost palm-sweating level, but Mack, Bretton and Katy Wix as dim Daisy keep it bobbing along.

Radio Times review

Uber-loafer and all-round northern waster Lee (Lee Mack) feels a direct attack on his manhood when his flatmate Lucy is mugged by a group of young thugs. Lee watches helplessly as they flee with her handbag, and decides he must prove himself as a real man.

As a new series starts, Not Going Out doesn't deviate from its standard, winning formula. And why should it? What it does, it does brilliantly. Gags are carefully set up, you can see them coming, but when they hit, you laugh. Simple. Of course all of this is made special by Lee Mack, probably the best gag-man on television, and a proper comedian who is funny to his bone marrow.

But let's also give a cheer to his wonderfully dry foil, Sally Bretton as Lucy, who heroically feeds Lee with his jokes, while also slapping down his doomed attempts at self-improvement.