Cringe you might, but laugh you will – the ‘Not Going Out’ comedian has become a national treasure
Lee Mack has, by stealth, become the nation’s favourite comic. The 56-year-old stand-up is about to return to our screens with the 14th series of his sitcom Not Going Out, and for those of us who might not catch him here, we can find him also presenting the ITV game show The 1% Club or, back on the BBC, on the comedy panel show Would I Lie to You? It is testament to the success of his particular brand that, wherever we might alight upon him, we get the same Lee Mack: an old-school, quickfire funnyman grinning impishly through five-day stubble, whose patter is redolent of a comedy historian impeccably steeped in his craft.
Mack is one of those rare modern comedians who seem to have almost universal appeal, at once a throwback to end-of-the-pier cheek but who also feels surprisingly current – no easy task for a white male gag-merchant in 2025. His Would I Lie to You? co-panellist Rob Brydon once said of him: “He has the quickest mind of anyone I have ever met.” On their show, the jokes come endlessly, because – for him – absolutely everything is a possible punchline. “I remember the last thing my nan said to me before she died,” goes one joke. ‘What are you doing here with that hammer?’” Another runs: “We’ve had to get a live-in nanny, ‘cos that dead one wasn’t working out.”
For a nation that prides itself on its ability to laugh, how else are we to judge him but as a comedy hero?
Born in Southport in 1968, Mack was raised by publican parents. This would prove a perfect formative playground for him; everyone in a bar may be funny, but only the funniest thrive. Later honing his craft on the stand-up circuit, he made his TV debut in 2001 on ITV’s The Sketch Show, and has rarely been off our screens since.
If the potted biography of him suggests perpetual harmony – married for 25 years, three children – there is also tragedy. In 2014, his older brother died after taking an overdose of antidepressants. This clearly had an impact: Mack has recently turned to Buddhism and meditation, investigations into which form the basis of his podcast, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha.
In a professional sense, at least, the grin almost never slides, and it’s Not Going Out that has turned him into a national treasure. It follows Lee, a largely unmotivated man in his late 30s (when the series first started) – based, as the name would suggest, on Mack himself. As the series progressed, Lee eventually got things together enough to marry and have children with his landlady Lucy (Sally Bretton), but he remains habitually hapless, and occasionally hopeless.
It’s an unashamed throwback to the television sitcoms of a by-now dim and distant past, reminiscent of George and Mildred (1976-1979) and Terry and June (1979-1987), with its cosy suburban family set-up, featuring plenty of kitchen-based bickering between the fridge and the wine rack. The last 13 series have averaged four million viewers per episode, with people tuning in every week knowing precisely what they’re going to get – and craving more of it. It is now the UK’s second-longest-running sitcom, behind Last of the Summer Wine.
Objectively speaking, Not Going Out is not a good sitcom. It’s not Mrs Brown’s Boys bad, but it’s wooden and clunky, more Miranda than The Office, and lacking the slapstick style of, say, Mack’s beloved Frasier. The script is jokes galore, all of them written in the same voice – specifically his. As critics’ reviews rarely fail to point out, the cast – which also includes his neighbour Toby, played by Hugh Dennis – often visibly wince while delivering lines that are unambiguously panto-adjacent.
And yet, curiously, it’s exactly this brand of cringe that has become part of its enduring appeal. Not Going Out is gentle, predictable, silly fun for all the family. In a few years time, it’ll be hailed a classic.
British television has always relied upon its genial comedy all-rounders – Eric Morecambe, Ronnie Corbett, Bruce Forsyth. Now, there is Lee Mack. And just like them, he’s set to run and run.
‘Not Going Out’ series 14 starts tonight at 9pm on BBC One
