Not Going Out

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

If you like your smut applied not with a trowel but with a cement mixer, then you're going to be in heaven as the innuendo- and entendre-festooned gags simply don't stop.

The supply is inexhaustible because slacker Lee (Lee Mack) is at the epicentre of that beloved comedy set-up, the bloke donating his sperm. You might have to cover your ears and put granny in the porch for half an hour when the long-suffering Lucy, desperate for a baby, asks her friend and flatmate to help her.

It will surprise no one to learn that the opportunity to crack that old chestnut "pull out at the last minute" is given an airing in an episode that's as coarse as cardboard.

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.

Now in its seventh series, Mack employs the same formula with his slacker namesake still struggling to navigate through his everyday life. This first episode sees Lee emasculated as he fails to prevent a gang of youths from mugging Lucy (Sally Breton). Lee's shame sees him enrol in boxing classes before taking on a fight against an opponent who humiliates him once again. I believe that the problem with modern day sitcoms is that they spend so long coming up with a premise that they forget their key purpose it to make people laugh. Not Going Out provoked at least four or five big bell laughs during its thirty minute running time and I can't say that about too many other comedies. Although he's no actor, Mack's strength is in his delivery and he makes the far-fetched nature of the plot feel somewhat believable. His line about knitting thieves was particularly clever as was his banter with the receptionist at the boxing gym. As the straight man of the partnership, I don't believe Breton gets the credit she deserves as she sets Mack up for his jokes beautifully. As ditzy Daisy, Katy Wix is used sparingly and as a result doesn't feel as overused as she did in the sitcom's previous outing. After a tricky sixth series, it feels that all three principle players have now learnt to cope without Tim Vine and I believe that this is one of the strongest episodes of Not Going Out that I've seen for a while. Although I'm not sure that I'll find all ten instalments as funny as this opener it's still great to see that old-fashioned gag-based comedies are still succeeding in 2014.

It's a new series for the gag-heavy sitcom starring and co-written by Lee Mack. Lee and Lucy's night at the cinema ends in a mugging at the hands of a teen gang, and they make away with Lucy's bag (containing mostly knitting). The incident, in which Lee is utterly useless, plunges him into a crisis of his own masculinity. He joins a boxing gym and takes on a trainer, with predictably terrible results. Even when the plot feels a little thin - as here - the one-liners are still pretty solid.

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.

Not Going Out, review: 'the cracks are showing'

It remains, at least, a formidable technical achievement: a would-be triumph of quantity over quality, where jokes are sprayed around by Mack, a human Gatling gun whose mastery of comic timing remains a thing of wonder. But such eagerness to please meant that rather too many of these are now missing their mark: when I laughed, it was more from exhaustion than anything else.

Lee Mack returns for a new series of Not Going Out and this time it's personal - he's character has managed to work his way onto TV.

Appearing in an episode of BBC quiz show Pointless, it doesn't take much for quizmaster Richard Osman to work him out.

In the video above Osman says: "We pre-record these so you're not going to look like an idiot for two or three weeks."

We're not sure how well Lee does on Pointless, the BBC One programme which gives its contestant a chance to score as little as possible, but we know it will be entertaining.

The sitcom, which follows the jokes, jibes and general misunderstandings of happy-go-lucky Lee and his friends returns on Friday.

Episode one of series seven is called 'Mugging' - when Lucy has her handbag stolen from right under Lee's nose, he feels the need to prove his manliness over and over and over again.

TV preview: Not Going Out, BBC1

Not Going Out is apparently the UK's longest-running sitcom. Not exactly in the Last Of The Summer Wine league, but it has been going since 2006. And actually it does have something in common with Last Of The Summer Wine. Boy, are some of the gags creaky and arthritic.

Not Going Out provided the requisite amount of laughter to justify its place on the Christmas schedules. In fact I would go as far as to say that Lee Mack's comedy is currently the best mainstream sitcom airing on any terrestrial channel.

By now I think you know exactly what to expect from Not Going Out and if you don't like the kind of wisecracking humour employed by Mack and company then it's probably best to skip the show. While I concede that its loss some of its charm since the departure of Tim Vine, Not Going Out still delivers laughs on a consistent basis. Unlike some other sitcoms that are joke-heavy, Not Going Out features three likeable lead performers all of whom are great at delivering their lines at a suitable pace.

I personally felt that Not Going Out was perfectly placed on the schedules, late on Christmas Eve, so people could enjoy it while tucking into the first drinks of the festive season. Ultimately I laughed all of the way through Not Going Out and sometimes that's all you need from a Christmas Comedy Special.