Would I Lie To You?

Returning to assume his hosting position for an eye-watering seventh series, Rob Brydon stirs the comedy panel-show action with his familiar scurrilous cheek. David Mitchell and Lee Mack are back in harness as team captains, and tonight's porky-spinning guest line-up includes Rhod Gilbert, Vernon Kay, Dara O'Briain and Denise Van Outen. Who will turn out to be the most credible fibbers/most gullible listeners when it comes to telling tales - tall or true - about their own lives?

The funniest and most likeable panel game on television returns to brighten Friday nights, with Lee Mack and David Mitchell renewing their class-divided clash of wits.

As Mitchell has pointed out, the running rivalry trades on images of each other - as the unworldly toff and the philistine oik - that have precious little to do with reality, but hey, who cares when they deliver the laughs? The other panellists, Rob Brydon as host, even the format of the show, are all only biding time until Mack and Mitchell can start pitching derisive darts at one another.

But lest we forget, the gist of the show is celebs telling implausible - yet often true - stories about themselves and submitting to mocking cross-examination, before opponents try to guess if they're bluffing.

For added enjoyment, play along at home and pause before the reveal to take bets. It's not easy.

This, believe it or not, is the seventh series of Would I Lie to You?. A hardy perennial then, which seems to suggest that casting, not format is the most important factor in the success of a panel show. The competitive comic chemistry between posh pedant David Mitchell and ruthlessly efficient robo-quipper Lee Mack sustains the show, and Rob Brydon is a likeable host too.

A few of the rougher edges have been smoothed out over the years - WILTY? occupies a pre-watershed slot these days, so we can probably forget about any more appearances from Frankie Boyle or Jimmy Carr. But it remains really watchable Friday evening fare.

It's been scientifically proven that it's impossible to watch this without feeling at least 42% happier than before it started. True or false? Who cares.

What is absolutely true is that this is the seventh series of the rib-tickling Friday night favourite where team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack do such sterling work each week to keep the old North-South rivalry stoked up.

Rob Brydon will be in the presenter's chair once again and fibbing for all they're worth tonight (or are they?) will be comedian and occasional maths guru Dara O Briain, Rhod Gilbert, Vernon Kay - who claims that he once nearly caused a gas explosion while in a banana packing factory - and Denise van Outen, who has a confession to make about her bottom for viewers tonight. You can feel David Mitchell blushing behind his beard already.

It's a good job this goes out before the watershed, or things could get out of hand.

Would we lie to you? - true or false celebrity quiz

As Would I Lie to You? returns to BBC1, we challenge you to call our bluff on stars ranging from Jenna-Louise Coleman to Benedict Cumberbatch...

It's the end-of-series compilation, the episode where, because the WILTY? folk record more material than they can carve into each show, they're left with a variety of awkward offcuts. Often these are the marginally-less-believable attempts by panellists to persuade us of outlandish incidents, lies so daft their tellers can barely keep straight faces - but not always.

Alexander Armstrong gets a round of applause just for reading out his card, featuring as it does the claim that in one weekend he had a curry with Andy Murray, went bowling with JK Rowling and attended an odd party with Todd Carty.

On top form, this soars like an eagle above just about every other comedy and panel show on TV. In this episode Downton Abbey's Mr Carson, Jim Carter, reveals himself to be a bit of a comedy star, deadpanning a tale of how he serves the Downton cast lunch in his butler pomp when they are off duty. Meanwhile, young whippersnapper Jack Whitehall has fun with a story about a lady and his duvet "toggage". But it's Armando Iannucci's tale of a baboon and a visit to a safari park that sends everyone into surreal flights of fancy.

This week the show it features not one, but two, token women!

Josie Lawrence and Sarah Millican join host Rob Brydon and team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell to help sort fact from fiction.

Also in tonight's episode we hear about the evil eye expression Huw Edwards employs during interviews.

And former Corrie star, game-show host and corpser extraordinaire Bradley Walsh fails miserably to maintain a poker face tonight.

His story - involving the theft of some mashed potato - will be submitted to the show's usual ruthless scrutiny, cross-interrogation and lightning wit.

"Talk about the Euro and do it with some level of insight!" demands David Mitchell of Lee Mack, in that pretend-outraged voice he uses a lot on this show. Mack gets his own back by demanding that Mitchell talk about last year's Carling Cup final. Neither of them can oblige, of course, but that's not the point: they're putting to the test the idea that Huw Edwards has an "evil eye" expression he uses to cut colleagues short in a studio discussion if they're going on too long. Edwards scowls a lot to demonstrate.

Sarah Millican, Josie Lawrence and Bradley Walsh are the other guests, with Walsh enjoyably corpsing as he tries to pretend he once stole mashed potato from his teachers.

David Mitchell is sandwiched between two TV giants this week. Literally. Pointless's Richard Osman and The Inbetweeners' Greg Davies are both about 6ft 8 in tall where Mitchell is a good ten inches shorter.

Osman's dry wit has won him a cult following among daytime viewers but given the wider platform of primetime TV, it turns out he's genuine comedy gold. His first attempt to bamboozle his opponents involves a Cluedo-esque story about burying a badger with the Banker from Deal or No Deal. It leaves his fellow panellists crying with laughter. Patsy Kensit has her comedy moments too, though. When asked rhetorically by a straightfaced Osman, "You're not an actress, are you, Patsy?" she swiftly replies: "A lot of people would say no."

In the remainder of the show Bob Mortimer insists he can split an apple with his bare hands, while Davies reveals he is the schoolboy creator of the "Snorkel Parka Music Practice Room" game.