Not Going Out. Image shows from L to R: Lee (Lee Mack), Lucy (Sally Bretton). Copyright: Avalon Television / Arlo Productions
Not Going Out

Not Going Out

  • TV sitcom
  • BBC One
  • 2006 - 2023
  • 100 episodes (13 series)

Fast-paced, gag-packed studio sitcom starring Lee Mack and Sally Bretton. Also features Hugh Dennis, Abigail Cruttenden, Geoffrey Whitehead, Deborah Grant, Bobby Ball and more.

Press clippings Page 10

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.

Bim Adewunmi, The Guardian, 17th October 2014

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.

Alison Graham, Radio Times, 17th October 2014

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.

Gabriel Tate, The Telegraph, 17th October 2014

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.

Danny Walker, The Mirror, 16th October 2014

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.

Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 12th October 2014

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.

Matt Donnelly, The Custard TV, 28th December 2013

Lee, Lucy and Daisy spend Christmas in a ramshackle, remote country house once owned by Lee's now-dead aunt. But it's a creepy place - a chair rocks by itself, there's strange music, a locked cellar door and a legend involving an unhappy boy.

Anyone who enjoys Not Going Out's quickfire, you-can-see-them-coming gags and its soft-centred smut will be in heaven. It's hard to resist such a straightforward, coarsely old-fashioned sitcom and Lee Mack's immaculate comic timing, despite or possibly even because of the scatalogical gags. Though everything is assiduously telegraphed, just give yourself up to a bit of ribald fun, one that stars the fabulous Geoffrey Whitehead as Lucy's magnificently austere dad.

Alison Graham, Radio Times, 24th December 2013

When Lee's dad offers him the use of his new yacht, he leaps at the chance to help Lucy "overcome her fear of water", while, in reality, steering her towards the yacht's double bed, in the series finale. Alas, Frank's seafaring beauty turns out to be a leaky tugboat ("Why buy a big boat to impress a woman when you can go for a little tug instead?"), ultimately leading to a Titanic-style scenario. Still, at least Daisy is able to tell the time just by looking at the stars: "It's ... night-time."

Ali Catterall, The Guardian, 31st May 2013

When Lee's dad comes knocking at the door, the best thing would be to shut it in his face. But that would mean depriving the audience of some fishy marine puns - and Lee the chance of sharing a double bed with Lucy. Daddy Mack has bought a boat and invites Lee, Daisy and Lucy to spend the night on board. It's moored up, so it's not going anywhere - not anywhere that would activate Lucy's fear of water, cause Lee to gear up in a wetsuit, and Daisy to learn some new sailor's knots. Oh no. That would just be silly.

Emma Sturgess, Radio Times, 31st May 2013

In BBC1's Friday-night run of Would I Lie to You?, Have I Got News for You and Not Going Out, it's the sitcom that is starting to feel like the weak link. But Lee Mack's old-school set-up-gag, set-up-gag rhythms still attract audiences of well over three million every week, even if some of us still miss Tim Vine. This week, it's once again Katy Wix's Daisy who provides the funniest scene, as she helps Lee practise his magic show before a kids' party, but takes things a bit literally, warning him, "You shouldn't mess around when dealing with the occult."

David Butcher, Radio Times, 24th May 2013

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