Not Going Out is a British television sitcom created, written by and starring Lee Mack. It has aired on BBC One since 2006, making it the second-longest-running British sitcom, behind Last of the Summer Wine (1973–2010).
The show began with Mack as Lee, an unambitious man from Lancashire; Tim Vine as his best friend Tim; and Megan Dodds as Kate, Lee's landlady in the London Docklands and Tim's ex-girlfriend. From the second series, Sally Bretton replaced Dodds as Lucy, Lee's new landlady and Tim's sister. At the end of the seventh series, Lee proposes to and marries Lucy, and from the eighth to thirteenth series, they live in Walton-on-Thames with their three children. As of series 14, the couple live together in a countryside house, and Mack and Bretton are the only two main cast members.
Production Production history Mack said in 2026 that Not Going Out originated with his 1999 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show Lee Mack's Bits, alongside Catherine Tate and Dan Antopolski. The first joke he thought of was that he would be looking through a telescope, and then jolt it upwards when his wife walked in. He came up with around twelve ideas for "The Flat Sketch", and a television pilot was made in 2005. After receiving feedback that it was hard to believe that his and Tate's characters were a couple, he made them tenant and landlady, and came up with the title Not Going Out.
Producers Avalon assigned Andrew Collins to write alongside Mack. While their script for the pilot took a month to make, the pair spent every weekday of the first half of 2006 writing the five other episodes. Mack based his character on his experiences in his mid-20s, when he lived with friends and struggled for a career. The best friend character was initially called Colin, and was a tough man, similar to Tate's character. Tim Vine, who had acted alongside Mack on The Sketch Show, played Colin in the pilot, though the role was not written for him. When the series began, Mack renamed the character Tim and made his personality closer to Vine's own characteristics. Tate was unavailable for the series due to the popularity of The Catherine Tate Show, so Mack cast American actress Megan Dodds due to his love of American sitcoms. After her departure, she was replaced by Sally Bretton as Lucy. Miranda Hart played an acupuncturist in a series 1 episode, and Mack brought her back as cleaner Barbara for the next two series, until her departure for the sitcom Miranda. Katy Wix as Tim's girlfriend Daisy, and Bobby Ball as Lee's father Frank, were first introduced as one-off characters; Mack said that the frequent turnover of the cast meant that he did not introduce characters to be instantly recurring.
Not Going Out was cancelled in 2009 after its third series, but revived in 2011 after an online petition. Vine left after the fifth series in 2012, saying that he wanted a change. His character was written out by going on a work placement to Germany. The supporting characters Toby (Hugh Dennis) and Anna (Abigail Cruttenden) were introduced as replacements; Mack had enjoyed watching Cruttenden on P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang in 1982. The seventh series was pitched to Dennis and Cruttenden as the finale of Not Going Out. Mack felt that the premise of his character being attracted to his landlady but unable to express it was becoming unusual due to the characters' ageing, and the series concluded with Lee proposing to and marrying Lucy.
In May 2013, a British remake of Everybody Loves Raymond, starring Mack and Tate and titled The Smiths, was announced; Mack announced in December that it had been abandoned. Instead of running two sitcoms, Mack decided to convert Not Going Out into a sitcom about a family, like Everybody Loves Raymond. He took advice from the American sitcom's creator Philip Rosenthal to make stories based on real-life experiences and moved the timeline forwards seven years, with Lee and Lucy married and with three children, like the real-life Mack; the setting moved to Walton-on-Thames, near the actor's home. For Christmas 2018, the episode was broadcast live; on a producer's advice, Mack included scenes that would be difficult to perform live, such as having Dennis and Cruttenden perform "The Elements". Having enjoyed the audience interaction in the live episode, Mack wanted the show to always be live, but instead converted it to real time, introducing another timeline jump to Lee and Lucy living in the countryside after their children go to university.
Mack said in 2018 that he once threatened to cancel Not Going Out due to a dispute with the channel Dave, which aired repeats. As a non-drinker, he objected to alcohol being advertised during breaks on the show; the channel eventually met his demands. During the dispute, he turned down a guest appearance on Dave's Red Dwarf, a decision he regretted.
After the death of Ball in 2020, Mack planned a funeral episode for Frank, in which Ball's comedy partner Tommy Cannon would play the priest, as he had in the show's wedding episode in 2014, and mourners would include Ball's contemporaries Syd Little and Freddie Davies. The episode was abandoned because it was too sad, and was replaced by an episode in which Lucy's mother Wendy (Deborah Grant) paints an unflattering portrait of Frank, which Lee tries to hide.
Mack said in 2026 that he would rather the show have irregular Christmas specials, like Gavin & Stacey, than end with a designated finale.
Production process Lee Mack and Andrew Collins were the initial writers, with Paul Kerensa, Simon Evans and Daniel Peak joining the team in later series. Mack is the last remaining actor from the original cast, and the only actor to appear in every episode.
The show currently uses the Chiswick Playhouse to present pre-production script read-throughs, by the cast, to the public. The show is recorded in front of a live audience at Elstree Studios, combined with on-location scenes.
Collins wrote in 2013 that the use of a laugh track and studio audience was considered unfashionable when the show debuted, due to series such as The Office that avoided them. According to producer Jamie Rix, the laughter may be taken from a first take, and then put over a later take in post-production if the first take had to be cut.
As of 2025, Not Going Out now holds the title of the UK's longest-running sitcom currently on air and is second only to Last of the Summer Wine in terms of longevity for prime time sitcoms in the UK.
Most of each episode was shot on set in front of an audience at Teddington Studios. There are two main sets: the flat/house and the bar/coffee shop that Lee frequently visits. Outdoor shots and real indoor location shots have also been used on occasion. The fourth and fifth series were shot at the BBC Television Centre. The sixth and seventh series saw filming return to Teddington Studios. International distribution is handled by Avalon who also produce the series. From Series 5 onwards, Not Going Out was produced in association with Lee Mack's own company, Arlo Productions (named after his son). The 2015 Christmas special was filmed on location in Wimbledon, in a department store, and was screened in London to record the laugh track. After Teddington Studios closed, series 8 was filmed at BBC Elstree Centre and series 9-14 were filmed at Pinewood Studios. Series 15 commenced recording at Elstree Studios on 27 March 2026. In series 6, for the episode entitled Boat, production visited the Port of Ramsgate in Kent to film part of the episode where Lee's dad, Frank (Bobby Ball), has bought a boat and invites Lee and his friends down to Eastbourne for the weekend. When they arrive, the boat is not what everyone expected.
The show is filmed in HDTV and, since series 4, airs simultaneously on BBC One HD. Previous to this, the show was not simulcast on BBC HD, but shown on BBC HD 30 minutes after the BBC One airing.
A lot of the humour is based on word play and double entendres delivered in a deadpan manner. This is a comedy style Mack and Vine have used both in stand-up and in The Sketch Show, to the extent that an occasional one-liner from their solo performances is slipped in. This is mostly one-sided, with Kate and later Lucy typically being the victims of the joke. Sight gags are also frequently used, while verbal gags and witticisms are incorporated into almost every line of script.
Mack said in 2026 that he regretted the profanity in early episodes of the series, as he was concerned about swearing on television since becoming a father, and the show only used bleeped profanity "strategically". According to Mack, the BBC interfered to remove partial nudity in a strip club scene in the series 4 episode "Life on Mars Bars", due to the Sachsgate scandal.
For the first series, episodes were written by Mack and Andrew Collins, with members of the cast credited for additional material. Because the eight episodes of the second series had to be written and filmed in a short space of time, Avalon Television brought in Peter Tilbury, Paul Kerensa and Simon Evans to join the writing team. Mack, Collins and Stacey concentrated on writing the main body of the episodes whilst Kerensa and Evans were involved in storylining, rewriting and 'gagging up' the episodes. The third series saw the writing team expanded, with Darin Henry, Daniel Peak, and Simon Dean contributing to the main episodes (all co-written with Mack). The "gag writing" team was also expanded, from two members to as many as eight, not counting the main writers, on a single episode. Milton Jones was among the additional writers of the show.
The theme song is performed by Frank Sinatra impersonator Stephen Triffitt.
The flat in which Lee and Kate/Lucy lived from 2006 to 2015 is No. 17. In a DVD commentary for the first series, it was mentioned that "Number 17" was originally considered as a title for the series, before the name "Not Going Out" was decided upon.
Synopsis The series focuses on Lee Mack, who plays a fictional version of himself: an unambitious man, initially in his late thirties living as a lodger in a flat in the London Docklands.Not Going Out, s2, e1 Originally from Chorley, Lancashires2 e2&7 (which is approximately 20 miles from Southport, Mack's real-life birthplace), Lee is a negligent, unmotivated layabout. Frequently between jobs, he spends most of his days on his sofa watching television or at the local pub with his best friend, Tim Adams (Tim Vine), whom he has known for 15 years.s1 e4 Tim is an accountant from Henley-on-Thames who owns the flat in which Lee is a lodger. Lee is also noted for his cheeky wit and for having a very troubled relationship with his father, with whom he shares many traits and who says that Lee was unplanned and resulted in the end of his marriage.
Very often, the only thing that can get Lee off his sofa and active is his efforts to impress the girl of his dreams. In the first series, this girl is Kate (Megan Dodds), Lee's feisty American landlady, with whom he frequently has conflict but otherwise has a close relationship. Kate is Tim's ex-girlfriend; he left her for a 23-year-old named Emma (whom Lee and Kate frequently suggest looked a lot younger), but he is single again after Emma left him.