Radio Times review

Tim Vine's absence is keenly felt in Not Going Out, but Hugh Dennis's addition to the cast is a shrewd move - he fills a similar comedy foil/sounding board role for those pub chats. But he has a delicious wryness, too, which softens the blokey stuff that goes on elsewhere.

Tonight he's called on, by a very tortuous route, to help Lee torpedo a surprise anniversary party that Lucy is hosting for her parents. Her terrifyingly imperious dad (the magnificent Geoffrey Whitehead, who surely should be knighted for services to both television and radio comedy) hates surprises, while her mum just wants some fun. There's an idiotic phone call involving a fake Italian accent and lots of ludicrous crosstalk.

Radio Times review

Lee's decrepit dad Frank (Bobby Ball) is dossing in Lucy's pristine flat (how can she afford such a wonderful place in London? What does she do for a living?) and he's drinking too much.

Not Going Out totters into potentially difficult territory as Lucy, Daisy and a highly reluctant Lee (Lee Mack) decide to stage an intervention after Frank wees on the yucca plant, to tell him of their fears he's turned into an alcoholic. There's a lot of comic unde'cutting of some difficult situations, including a group session at a rehab centre that becomes very uncomfortable.

But this is Not Going Out and not a Russell Brand treatise, so we expect tastelessness, even if in this case it feels just a bit off-key.

Daisy has won the opportunity to be a gameshow contestant, giving the cast of Not Going Out the chance to visit another set on the BBC lot - Pointless. Daisy has to choose a teammate between Lee and Lucy (Lee pips it via nefarious means, naturally), but is too busy planning a way to woo Richard Osman to notice that Lee is no good at quizzes. Both Osman and Alexander Armstrong do a decent job being the straight men to Mack's relentless gag machine.

Radio Times review

Pointless's Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman guest-star as themselves when Lee and Daisy appear on the blockbuster [z]BBC One/z] daytime quiz show.

Of course there are two big hurdles - Lee (Lee Mack) knows nothing about anything and Daisy (Katy Wix) is so exquisitely stupid she thinks that The Prisoner of Azkaban is a book of the Bible.

This is the perfect comedy set-up and they both fall headfirst into every comic trap that's been carefully built for them, from Lee's woeful knowledge of American presidents to Daisy's pathological insistence on taking absolutely everything she is told, literally (Wix is brilliant, by the way).

Armstrong and Osman have some fun, too, with Armstrong twinkling and flirting with Lee and Daisy's friend Lucy, and Osman becoming a gimlet-eyed avenger when he sees right through a craven Lee.

You're in for a real treat this week as Pointless hosts Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman hurl themselves into this sitcom playing themselves.

Daisy (Katy Wix) has been accepted as a contestant on the show and Lee uses nefarious means to convince both her and Lucy that he is some kind of quizzing superstar.

It's a glorious set-up as Daisy and Lee prepare to display their entire lack of general knowledge to the nation at large.

For once, it's not just Lee himself who hogs all the best lines. Wix as the clueless Daisy is absolutely terrific, whether she's trying to name an American president or blatantly stalking Osman on whom she has a massive schoolgirl crush.

As for Osman, playing yourself isn't as easy as you'd think, but he proves yet again that there's not much he can't turn his hand to - even if he does have to duck to get through the doorway to his own dressing-room.

It's an episode destined to become as enduring a comedy classic as The Young Ones' appearance on University Challenge.

Not Going Out guest Richard Osman interview

"I'm planning to watch it with my biggest critics - my son and daughter. They're both big fans of Not Going Out and they watch a lot of TV comedy, so they'll view it as proper consumers."

The ultimate in middle-of-the-road British comedy, the gags on offer here are so predictable they may have you convinced you've got extrasensory perception. It's well intentioned, though, and well into its seventh outing it continues to pull in both rapturous laughter from a studio audience and healthy viewing figures. This week, Lee (Lee Mack) attempts to impress wealthy neighbours Toby and Anna (new regular cast members Hugh Dennis and Abigail Cruttenden) with some tall tales, as flatmate Lucy (Sally Bretton) plays along.

Radio Times review

"Quinoa, fennel and ramekins [are] the names of your future children."

This is what is yelled by slacker Lee (Lee Mack), who's hopelessly drunk at a society party and furious at the company of his and Lucy's humourless, dull neighbours.

Of course, no one in their right mind would ever invite someone so socially inept to such a do, so the road is paved for Lee to get hammered and reveal his working-class roots at full, outraged volume: "I am scum! I've got a bag for life from Greggs!" Poor, long-suffering Lucy (Sally Bretton), all she wanted to do was widen her circle of friends...

Radio Times review

If you like your smut applied not with a trowel but with a cement mixer, then you're going to be in heaven as the innuendo- and entendre-festooned gags simply don't stop.

The supply is inexhaustible because slacker Lee (Lee Mack) is at the epicentre of that beloved comedy set-up, the bloke donating his sperm. You might have to cover your ears and put granny in the porch for half an hour when the long-suffering Lucy, desperate for a baby, asks her friend and flatmate to help her.

It will surprise no one to learn that the opportunity to crack that old chestnut "pull out at the last minute" is given an airing in an episode that's as coarse as cardboard.

Radio Times review

Lee is the kind of man who, when he's in a hole, doesn't stop digging, he just goes on to plough another hole, and then another one, and then another one...

He's almost buried alive in tonight's comedy of errors as he unwittingly manages to get himself and Lucy (Sally Bretton) invited to a christening party by the baby's very reluctant parents.

TV dad par excellence Hugh Outnumbered Dennis is the baby's father, a picture of quiet exasperation as Lee (Lee Mack) and Lucy's doomed attempts to buy a suitable present for his son spiral into madness.

It's all tremendously silly and contrived, of course, to an almost palm-sweating level, but Mack, Bretton and Katy Wix as dim Daisy keep it bobbing along.