Sally Bretton

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.

Good news: the wonderful Geoffrey Whitehead is back in the series. He plays the stern, disapproving father of Lee's flatmate Lucy, just as he played the stern disapproving father in Worst Week of My Life (which starred Ben Miller) - and every bit as well. It's a shame the script feels more strained than usual as Lucy (Sally Bretton) visits a trade conference to try to pick up new clients - "pick up" being, to Lee's horror, the name of the game.

How he tries to intervene before she can go too far and how that gets him into trouble with her parents leads us through an enjoyably old-fashioned farce. And Whitehead gets to say the line: "I used to box for Surrey, you know!" as only he can.

A cheap skiing holiday in eastern Europe turns into a nail-biting comedy nightmare for Lee, Daisy and Lucy when they become stranded in a cable car far above the piste.

The episode plays out in real time, which helps to build up the hysteria as the group come to realise that the local woman stuck in the car with them is heavily pregnant. You can probably see where this is going, can't you?

What follows is typically ribald, buffoonish Not Going Out fare as hapless Lee (Lee Mack) is inevitably nominated to act as midwife - what with Lucy (Sally Bretton) being incapacitated by an accident and dim Daisy (Katy Wix) being, well, dim Daisy. Throw her a stick and she is guaranteed gleefully to seize the wrong end. Of course it's deeply silly, but as usual there are gags that will make you laugh, despite yourself.

A welcome return for Lee Mack's likable sitcom, and veritable gag-alanche of pithy one-liners. When Lucy (Sally Bretton) attempts to secure a contract with a client at his house, she ends up accidentally running over his daughter's pet rabbit. It's just the start of a masterclass in situation escalation, encompassing kidnapping, hare-brained helpers ... and beating a second rabbit to death with a torch. "Hopefully, it had Duracell batteries in it. It's what the bunny would have wanted."

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: to lose one scene-stealing support player is unfortunate but to lose two could be considered careless. So can the sitcom that helped launch the career of Miranda Hart - and survived - pull off the same trick now Tim Vine is absent from the sixth series? All eyes are on Lee Mack, still firmly at the centre of this universe, with puns and misfortune whirling around him like dysfunctional satellites as Lucy (Sally Bretton) plays Watership Down with a brace of innocent rabbits and Daisy (Katy Wix) strides in to make matters worse.

At the launch of the sixth series of Not Going Out, its star Lee Mack said the absent Tim Vine - who played Tim, Not Going Out's good-natured voice of reason and a perfect foil for Mack - would be replaced by an "abstract concept". What he meant was there'd be a lot more plot and story to make up for the Vine-sized gap. You'll be able to see what he was getting at in a very farcical opening episode involving dead rabbits.

All the usual Not Going Out tent-poles are in place; the quick-fire gags at which Mack is the unsurpassable master, the silly situations (very silly, as it turns out) and the excellent Sally Bretton and Katy Wix as Lucy and Daisy. It's frantic, frequently funny and refreshingly unpretentious. But you'll miss Tim Vine. I do.

Lee Mack's gag-packed, innuendo-laden creation is now on its sixth series, and has been sold to 120 countries. Set in London's Docklands, it follows happy-go-lucky slacker Lee (Mack himself) who has a crush on his flatmate Lucy (Sally Bretton), while Katy Wix (Anna & Katy) plays their dim-witted hairdresser friend Daisy. This eight-part run is the first without Mack's co-star and punning partner Tim Vine and begins with head-hunter Lucy going for dinner at a client's house in an attempt to secure a lucrative contract.

New comedy, by and starring David Schneider, set in that crossroad of British experience, the registry office. Schneider plays Malcolm, a Chief Registrar of the old school, stickler for rules and regulations, unmarried. Sent in to work beside him and bring the office up to date is Lorna (Sarah Hadland). She's a divorcee with bright ideas, like how to make weddings make profits. How far she'll get with the workforce, spiky Mary (Sally Bretton), geeky Luke (Russell Tovey) and dizzy but sympathetic Anita (Sandy McDade) is anyone's guess.

The brilliant Bobby Ball is back as Lee's (Lee Mack) wayward father Frank in this gently amusing sitcom. He turns up on the doorstep unannounced, in a wheelchair and asking to stay. Lee wants rid but Lucy (Sally Bretton) takes pity and invites him in. When Tim (Tim Vine) and his father (Geoffrey Whitehead) drop round to watch the cricket, their relationship inspires Lee and Frank into some father-son bonding.

Sally Bretton filmed NGO two weeks after giving birth

Not Going Out star Sally Bretton, who plays Lee's love interest Lucy, started filming the latest series two weeks after giving birth.