Comics Brittanica Continuing to Entertain�

Friday nights are undoubtedly back to being the definitive “staying in night” of the week.� Of course, this meant that last Friday we went out to see some friends for dinner and had to postpone our viewing until Saturday but it was worth the wait.� QI made a welcome return for its fifth series on BBC2 and the second installment, as is fast becoming tradition, followed immediately on another channel (to encourage all the luddites to upgrade to digi).� Back on BBC1, I am delighted

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Tags: Andrew-Collins, BBC, General, Jonathan-Ross, Most-Annoying-TV, Not-Going-Out, QI, Stephen-Fry

Staying In

Series one of Not Going Out was a delightful surprise. A Friday night, BBC1 comedy in the slot that had brought us the funny-for-five-episodes My Family and much other forgettable fayre, suddenly threw up a little gem. It didn’t baulk away from its comedy as so many other, more knowing, 21st century sitcoms tend to do and neither did it rely on extreme characterisation that encourages the audience to “laugh at” instead of “laugh with”. No, here was a comedy that was just

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Tags: Andrew-Collins, BBC1, Comedy, Lee-Mack, Not-Going-Out, Tim-Vine

The Object of Angus Deayton’s Affection

Week thirty-six was decidedly forgetable. A few new series for the autumn season managed to sneak their debuts in with the chucklefest that is Not Going Out back for a second outing. I found that it was not quite up to the standard of last series and felt a bit like a reset because of the introduction of a replacement for Kate and the arrival of Miranda Hart as the maid. I’m certainly expecting it to get better as the show progresses. Friday nights are further bolstered by Jonathan

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Tags: General, Hells-Kitchen, Jonathan-Ross, Nigella-Express, Not-Going-Out, QI, The-IT-Crowd

Hit, Miss or May Be

The Friday night comedy slot on BBC1 is always a successful one and, seemingly, this is regardless of the quality of the product on offer (see, My Hero as prime example).� The latest effort is After You’ve Gone, starring Nicholas Lyndhurst and Celia Imrie and it follows in the footsteps of the really rather good Not Going Out, so it had a lot to live up to in my book.� There were some positives such as Nicholas Lyndhurst.� He is one of those actors to whom I have a knee-jerk reaction of

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Tags: After-Youve-Gone, BBC1, Celia-Imrie, Comedy, Dani-Harmer, Nicholas-Lyndhurst, Not-Going-Out, Ryan-Sampson, Sitcom

Surprising Success

British sitcoms that are both high quality and highly popular have been a rare breed in the last few years, so it was with some trepidation that I approached Not Going Out, the latest in a series of BBC1, Friday night comedies in the tradition of My Hero (awful since the first episode) and My Family (started well, but never the same after Kris Marshall left).� Penned by famous talking head from many a “list show”, Andrew Collins and sketch show regular, Lee Mack, they have created what is

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Tags: Andrew-Collins, BBC1, Comedy, Lee-Mack, My-Family, My-Hero, Not-Going-Out, Tim-Vine