Not Going Out star Sally Bretton in pain as she's rushed to hospital during filming

Plenty of laughs took over the set of Not Going Out's latest season. But panic hijacked production when Sally Bretton was rushed to hospital, derailing filming.

In a television age obsessed with slick dramas, thrillers and satire, comedian Lee Mack is doing something radical - he’s trying to make us laugh. Out loud. Every few seconds. And he’s doing it the old fashioned way, with a studio sitcom, a real live audience and endless gags.

As his BBC1 sitcom Not Going Out returns for a brand new series, with another green lit for next year, it is clearly not going anywhere, clocking up over 100 episodes and holding its status as the longest-running UK sitcom on air.

“We’ll never catch up with Last Of The Summer Wine,” quips Lee. “Thank God.” He adds: “Our show is seen as very traditional, and some would say old fashioned, so therefore not risky, but it is a risk because it’s the minority.

“The highs and lows are extreme. Love or hate the studio sitcom, there’s no denying that they are really trying to go for the laugh. I’m not trying to write a line that makes people smile.

You don’t get canned smiling. I used to aim for a joke on every page, but that’s only every 30 seconds, it’s not enough. We try for a laugh in every line.”

The 56-year-old, who also appears in Would I Lie To You? and hosts game show The 1% Club, stars in the sitcom as ‘Lee’ alongside Sally Bretton as his long-suffering wife Lucy. The show, which started in 2006, has followed them from awkward flatmates via a torturous ‘will-they-won’t they’ plot until finally, they got married and had three kids.

The latest episodes, which Lee was determined to film ‘as live’ like a play, feature everything from a robotic sex doll to a freebie hotel stay, dilapidated campervan, roles as TV extras and a swipe at Oasis concert ticket sales.

Although, Lee reveals a medical issue halted production for a couple of weeks. He says: “There was a moment in that Oasis episode when we were filming it, when Sally said to me - she looked a bit in pain, ‘Do you know what appendicitis feels like?’

“I said, ‘I have no idea but I can tell you now you haven’t got appendicitis, otherwise you wouldn’t be here filming’. The next day she had her appendix out.”

Lee, who writes the show with Daniel Peak, takes an affectionate swing at Oasis in the episode that sees the couple lose their place in the online queue and start to blame each other. Lee laughs: “That is based in truth - I’m a massive Oasis fan, I did try to get tickets, I didn’t get them and I’m livid.”

He adds: “I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could get Liam or Noel to appear in that episode. My friend Rob Brydon had interviewed Noel, so I asked for his number.

It was the day after the ticket release. I texted Noel, ‘I know this isn’t a good time, but I reckon everyone’s asking for tickets and I’m probably the only one that isn’t. Will you be in my sitcom?’ He never got back to me.”

Lee adds: “My personal favourite episode is the one where I accidentally bring home a robot sex doll. Let me tell you, robotic sex dolls are very hard to get hold of.

We had an actor, with a mask on, and it just didn’t work. We could see her breathing. So in the end they had to make a robot. It was brilliant. It moved its head, it moved its mouth, its eyes, and I was in a double act with a sex robot.”

The upcoming series rolls the story on several years, with Lee and Lucy now empty nesters. With plenty of time for each other, what could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot it turns out.

Episode one follows their attempted house move, thwarted when they find their dream home, but Lee needs to use the loo, causing the usual tension, mistaken identities and farce.

There’s a nod to nostalgia too, with a photo on the mantelpiece in their new home of Bobby Ball, who played Lee’s dad and died in October 2020.

Lee says: “We all miss him a lot. He was like me, he wasn't from an acting background - so whatever I'm like in a studio, he was 50 times worse. The director would have to tell him not to keep looking at the audience every time he cracked a joke.”

Over the years a long list of stars have appeared in the show, including Miranda Hart, Tim Vine, Katy Wix, Abigail Cruttenden and Hugh Dennis, with many forgetting that Catherine Tate played Lucy in the pilot, followed by Megan Dodds in series one, before Beyond Paradise star Sally took over.

Lee says: “When we look back, Sally and I do get a bit emotional. We’ve been in the show a long time and there are different eras of it, especially when you look at all the people from the past who have been in the show and come and gone. “I think Sally’s aged brilliantly, whereas I've got a big gray beard. It’s been forever.”

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