Not Going Out series 4 episode 4 review

A slight change of cast, as marriage guidance counselling takes a sinister turn in the latest Not Going Out...

Not Going Out series 4 episode 3 review

What I really enjoy about Not Going Out is that, no matter what the backing scenario for a particular episode is, it can generate 10-12 really solid laughs per instalment.

Not Going Out series 4 episode 2 review

You can say what you like about Not Going Out, and I'm a fully signed up fan of the show, but its hit rate and laugh count consistently impress. And it did once more, again, in last night's episode.

Beware of pretty blondes carrying cups. That's as much as we can tell you without giving away too much. Not Going Out's metrical banter is, as ever, irritatingly vintage, but there's an unusually high good-joke count tonight, and an amusing flashback to a 1980s house party. "You look like a cross between a white Michael Jackson and Gloria Hunniford," says Lee when he meets bewigged host Tim for the very first time. In another key scene, Lee beats up a mini-golf windmill. Repeated exposure to Not Going Out does soften you up, but it's risk-averse and formulaic.

Lee Mack: I'm bothered by the existence of Twitter

Lee Mack talks about Not Going Out and why he's bothered about the existence of Twitter.

Not Going Out series 4 episode 1 review

Lee Mack and Tim Vine return in the first episode of Not Going Out since its reprieve from the axe. And the show is on very, very good form...

"Fast-moving" is somehow still too slow a phrase to describe Not Going Out, a sitcom that doesn't physically move much further than a similar flat-based show like Johnny Vegas's Ideal, but does so at three or four times the rate. Lee Mack writes and stars as displaced Lee in the flatshare comedy, where tonight things take a potentially sinister turn when Tim returns from a work do with a pocketful of a suspicious powder. Not a lot of soul, but plenty of what US comedy writers call "yucks", so it's worth checking out if you haven't yet.

The BBC was set to axe Lee Mack's old-style sitcom earlier this year but a public outcry changed all that. So here it is returning for a fourth series with slacker Lee (Mack) still desperate to win the approval of his flatmate Lucy (Sally Bretton) who, despite succumbing to a Christmas kiss last time we saw the pair together, is back to being as unattainable as ever.

Lee Mack's flatmates sitcom, where characters stay in to strangle funny lines with their old-fashioned delivery, returns for a fourth series. Not Going Out can, however, take pride in its inoffensive plotting, and its smart, well-constructed gags. This week, Tim goes clubbing, but getting tired at the end of the night he heads to Lee's wearing a double-breasted, fawn trench coat, which he thought was his but, as it emerges, isn't. He knows this because there are drugs in the pocket. And Tim would never keep drugs in a coat - especially not this kind (white, powdered, illegal) and quantity (lots).

Last year it looked like curtains for Lee Mack and Tim Vine's brightly lit one-liner-thon. But lo, it's back - and a jolly good thing too, for this flatmates sitcom is a cheesy guilty pleasure. In this opener, staid old Tim goes clubbing, which of course leads to disaster - he returns to Lee's wearing the wrong coat, which happens to be full of drugs.