Not Going Out

Prepare to be buried in a torrent of smut when Lee takes up Lucy's challenge to join a fun run. It sounds an unlikely source for a welter of mucky gags, but when Lee (Lee Mack) pulls a muscle during a half-hearted attempt at training, and when he hires a Polish masseuse to help, only he doesn't realise she's that kind of masseuse, we are pitched into Carry On type misunderstandings.

Before we know it, Lee and Tim have been arrested for kerb-crawling and end up in a brothel. Of course it doesn't matter that they are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing; it can't stop a flow of jokes that would make Roy Chubby Brown reach for a lace handkerchief.

Tonight's episode climaxes (if that's the right word) with Tim Vine and Lee Mack in bed with a Polish sex worker - the culmination of a very shaggy dog story indeed. As Vine sighs, this is what comes of being a friend of Mack, whose sitcom is like a more risqué Men Behaving Badly, with more one-liners. Vine does make one astute observation: "If prostitution's the oldest profession, it must have been the first and only profession. So where was everyone else getting the money to pay for it?"

Lee Mack's sitcom sees his hapless character start training for a fun run tonight and end up becoming embroiled with a prostitute. Its gag-heavy humour isn't to all tastes in this era of observational comedy, and some jokes do fall a bit flat, but most are pretty original - one of tonight's cleverer ones is: "Usain Bolt, I say tomato". The plots are also cleverly constructed, and, above all, Mack and co-star Tim Vine have fantastic comic chemistry. It's a very enjoyable half hour.

The quartet do head out tonight, into the great outdoors, on a camping trip that quickly descends into the usual silly farce that you'll enjoy against your better judgement. Don't miss dopey Daisy (Katy Wix) showing Tim Vine what she's made of.

Lee Mack is all over BBC1's Friday night line-up tonight.

As well as his regular stint as team captain on Would I Lie To You?, he's also rubbing shoulders with Zac Efron and Matt Le Blanc on The Graham Norton Show for anyone who just can't get enough of him.

Here, his sitcom almost lives up to the promise of its title as Lee, Tim, Daisy and Lucy attempt to go on a camping trip but don't actually get out of the car.

Lee is trying to prove that he's more of a real man than Tim.

It's a contest which hardly seems worth taking part in, but perhaps that's why he's gallantly allocated the lion's share of one-liners to dim Daisy (played by Katy Wix) and is content to take more of a back seat.

Literally, in this case.

The best lines tonight go to smashing Katy Wix as Daisy, Tim's remorselessly stupid girlfriend. Daisy is a woolly-hatted thumb-head, a dim pixie, a clot. She thinks camping is sexist because of its terminology: "One-man tent, guy rope" and eczema is a National Park.

Daisy is at her most wide-eyed when the Not Going Out quartet head to the woods for a night spent in tents under the stars. Disaster quickly looms when Tim's car breaks down and Lee (Lee Mack) decides to behave like a real man to impress his adored Lucy. But there's something nasty in the woods and no one feels brave. It's all very silly, but you will laugh, despite yourself.

Bobby Ball returns tonight to stir up more trouble as Lee's dad. This time he's in a wheelchair, covered head to toe with plaster, and in possession of some pain relief that can only be administered where the sun don't shine. That's the source of some obvious gags, but Lee Mack and Tim Vine play out the farce with their usual, splendid verve.

How many gags can you think of about suppositories?

Not as many as Lee Mack and his writing partner Daniel Peak, I'll bet.

Recurring guest star Bobby Ball, who plays Lee's errant father Frank, returns tonight for an episode crammed full of buttock-clenching humour.

Frank's got both his arms and legs in plaster after being hit by a bus and he's looking for a roof over his head, as well as a little pain relief and TLC.

But there's no love lost between father and son and Lee wouldn't touch his dad with a barge pole at the best of times.

I can't help thinking that a lot of unpleasantness could probably have been avoided if landlady Lucy had just bought paracetamol in the first place.

Bobby Ball guests as Lee's wastrel dad, who arrives at the flat - almost top to toe in plaster - to throw himself upon his son's mercy. But Lee's mercy is strained, non-existent, even, particularly when dad needs a painkiller that cannot be taken orally and which has to be inserted, ahem, elsewhere.

You'll have gathered that this is comedy as broad as the M62. Luckily, Lee Mack just about gets away with a stream of gags about backsides; some are genuinely funny, some are just rank. If it's sophistication you're after, it's probably best to look elsewhere.

Going out to watch Not Going Out (recording report)

Being a massive fan of the show, walking into the studio and seeing the set was a bit surreal yet mesmerising at the same time.