Most sitcoms have done away with a studio audience but Not Going Out remains touchingly old-fashioned. If you're used to the natural feel of Gavin & Stacey or Outnumbered, it takes a few moments to acclimatise to the studio lights and set-up/gag/set-up/gag rhythms of Not Going Out, but it's worth it: the jokes are lovingly crafted and nobody could accuse Lee Mack of not knowing how to deliver a zinger. Mack plays hopeless big-kid Lee, whose long-held crush on his landlady Lucy isn't helped by the fact that she is the sister of his best friend, Tim (Tim Vine). Tonight's opener for series three undermines the trad format with a gleefully off-colour, not to say X-rated, storyline: Lucy thinks she's pregnant and Lee is worried he may have helped get her that way, although exactly how doesn't bear too much thinking about.

Some sitcoms just won't go away, and so it is with Not Going Out, starring Lee Mack as Lee, who just never found the time to grow up on take on any adult responsibilities. Thing is, you can't help but like Not Going Out, for all its down at heel, old fashioned, studio-bound feel. It's certainly a cut above the now-defunct After You've Gone and woeful Life of Riley, and Mack, who serves as scriptwriter, is well versed in constructing intricate gags with a good payoff. Go on, give it a look. You might like it.

Lee Mack Interview

Sitcom writer and stand-up Lee Mack tells The Independent the secrets of being funny on TV.

Lee Mack, who plays the lead in the BBC sitcom Not Going Out, takes to the stage in London for an hour of stand-up. He's a polished, exuberantly confident performer with a gift for physical comedy reminiscent of Lee Evans.

Get Angus Deayton to chair it, get David Mitchell and Lee Mack as team captains and Bob's your uncle. Or is he?

Tonight's possible whoppers in what is very sadly the last in a howlingly successful series include the notion that when David was little he used to dress himself as an 18th century nobleman.

Possibly even funnier is his rant at team-mate Michael McIntyre for inadvertently helping the other side by asking the wrong sort of questions.

They've also cunningly managed to shoe-horn in an astounding clip of the oddball art of bottom reading. It has very little to do with anything but it's so funny, who cares about details like that?

The format may be derivative, but team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack are such masters of their (admittedly rather specific) craft that the BBC could broadcast footage of them sitting together on a park bench, bickering like an old married couple, and I'd happily watch it.

The team leaders on this Call My Bluff-style show - Lee Mack and David Mitchell - are on sensationally good form. Unassuming and immensely accomplished, once again it is the comic highlight of the week. Honestly.

David Mitchell is fast becoming king of the panel game. He's scarily good at them, so it's no wonder he's called on to lend his wits to shows from QI to Mock the Week, and from Have I Got News for You to a Radio 4 show called The Unbelievable Truth that's not a million miles from this.

This is the one where he and Lee Mack are team captains and Angus Deayton is chairman. The contestants have to bluff their way through various tales while their opponents work out which are true. So, for instance, did Gabby Logan really once steal red liquorice from Madonna's dressing room? Under close questioning from Rob Brydon it looks less and less likely. And is the mystery guest really Logan's former gymnastics rival, Mack's swimming teacher or, in fact, Robert Webb's ex-girlfriend?

Brydon and Mitchell make a great pair and what could be a stilted format is saved by some brilliant interplay and Brydon's flights of fancy.

The producers made particularly good choices in terms of the team captains, as having David Mitchell pitched against Lee Mack brings a certain class and north vs south element into the show, which Mack especially is always happy to exploit.

Team Captain Interview

The Sun interviews team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell.