Would I Lie To You?

If you were thinking Friday nights had become a little joyless lately, here's good news. The best panel shows around are back to make BBC1's end-of-week comedy desert bloom again.

First, Rob Brydon wheels his festival of half-truths, fantasy and implausible facts back into view. It's in a new, pre-watershed time slot, which means some of the more colourful exchanges between team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell will be reined in. But their exaggerated oik/toff banter should still be one of the funniest things on TV.

Just because this is an end-of-series offcut doesn't mean it'll be sub-standard. In making the show the producers obviously record more dubious anecdotes than each episode has room for. Some end up on the cutting-room floor, to be swept up later, but from previous compilations, we know that's not necessarily because they're less funny. The issue tends to be that for whatever reason, their truth or otherwise is a little easier to guess, so they don't leave you with that distinctive Would I Lie to You? feeling of bewildered uncertainty about how strange things really are in fame-land. The liars and guessers involved tonight range from Bill Oddie to Louie Spence.

The bits that end up on the cutting room floor of a panel show are invariably better than what goes out for broadcast, so you can expect some even funnier or risqué tall stories and banter in this series finale of outtakes. Featured with regulars David Mitchell and Lee Mack are the always-entertaining Dara O'Briain and Frank Skinner, plus leading ladies Sarah Millican and Miranda Hart.

The great Barry Cryer, stalwart of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and one of the best comedy script-writers Britain has ever produced, takes his place on Lee Mack's team in the last episode of the series (next week's is a best-bits compilation).

He remains convincingly po-faced as he tells some incredible tales. Does he really hail a local bus by saying, "Hello, darling"? Did he ever write romantic novels under a female pseudonym?

Sue Perkins just about manages to get a word in edgeways, and Lorraine Kelly is a giggly good sport on David Mitchell's team with Dara O'Briain. But, as ever, it's Mitchell and Mack's banter that steals the show.

Forget the other guests, Lee Mack and David Mitchell are such sharply funny antagonists that they should have a show all to themselves. Still, Dara O'Briain should prove good value as he parachutes in from Mock The Week tonight, while keeping the Amusing Golden Oldie seat warm is the legendary Barry Cryer.

I once sat through an edition of Would I Lie to You? without laughing. No, you're right - that's a lie. You try keeping a straight face as Sarah Millican tells the story of what she did when caught short while stuck in her car in a traffic jam. Or as Jon Richardson turns into "Trevor Travel-Planner" in his attempt to discredit Frank Skinner's tale about being taken to A&E in an ice-cream van while on holiday. But it's Lee Mack and David Mitchell who steal everyone's thunder with their by now familiar posh-versus-common, southern-versus-northern tirades.

Radio Times review

Some guests on this series fade into the background; others grab it by the lapels and make it their own. In the former category tonight is Konnie Huq, who while charming and plausible doesn't have a great deal to do. In the latter is comedian Greg Davis (from Mock the Week and The Inbetweeners) who dominates proceedings with his booming voice and extreme anecdotes. Except, are they anecdotes or fabrications? Did he really spend his first term at university sleeping in a bath, a tale that sounds as tall as he is? And how could a 6ft 8in man get any sleep in a bath anyway?

Much, much more heart-warming and just plain funnier than Mock the Week, I'd say - is BBC One's Would I Lie To You?. The show gets a lovely mix of guests but at its core is the genius idea of pitting David Mitchell and Lee Mack against each other as team captains. The highbrow vs lowbrow, South vs North dynamic is endlessly entertaining, and they are so quick, so sharp. I laugh out loud every week.

And in this latest series in particular, the producers seem perfectly happy to throw in a few lies per episode that are so utterly unbelievable that the guest can just have fun with it without being shackled by the need to make it sound plausible. A well-told, utterly convincing lie is impressive; a ridiculous one can be hilarious. Enter the supreme David O'Doherty, charged with persuading the opposing team that he is seeing a hypno-therapist to get over his addiction to hypno-therapists. THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is entertainment...

There are times when you wonder if this show wouldn't work just as well as a head-to-head between David Mitchell and Lee Mack - everyone else is making up the numbers really, and they know it. You can imagine a programme where the two of them simply sat there and mocked each other's different worlds, and a very funny show it would be.

But probably not as funny as this is, because it's often the rogue elements that make it - such as Nigel Havers this week claiming he once went out with a flamenco dancer who turned out to be a man. Mack's flights of fancy as he interrogates that story are inspired, as is Mitchell's cross-examination of Charlie Brooker's far-fetched Valentine's Day anecdote. I mean, what kind of teenager was he?

Did ever a panel game generate so much pure, simple comedy pleasure with apparently so little effort? Tonight, most of the claims that guests are required to make are laughably implausible. But the laughable bit is what matters. As Lee Mack keeps up the pretence that he can tell someone's head size just by looking at it, or Katherine Parkinson maintains that when she was 15 she thought Wombles were real, the laughs tumble in thick and fast - particularly when David Mitchell goes off on a flight of fancy about how Uncle Bulgaria got his glasses.

Louie Spence adds a brilliantly lewd edge to proceedings, and there are unexpected twists on the usual running gags, as Mitchell accuses Mack of intellectual snobbery (yes, that way round) and Mack wonders if Mitchell might actually shop at Argos.