Not Going Out creator Lee Mack reveals show's secrets at 20

Lee Mack has revealed the behind the scenes secrets of BBC sitcom Not Going Out as the show celebrates its 20th anniversary as Britain's longest-running active comedy.

The milestone is being marked with a one-off documentary, 20 Years Of Not Going Out, which airs on Wednesday, September 23 at 9PM on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, directly before the launch of series 15 at 9.30PM.

The celebratory special includes classic clips, exclusive archive material, and never-before-seen outtakes from the show's 106 episodes.

"After 20 years of Not Going Out we are delighted to finally give a warts and all peep behind the curtain of how it's made," Mack said. "Thankfully we have hoovered behind that curtain, but unfortunately the warts have not cleared up."

Origins of the comedy series

Mack created Not Going Out in 2006, having originally developed the concept from his 1999 Edinburgh Festival sketch show, Lee Mack's Bits, which he performed alongside Catherine Tate and Dan Antopolski.

While writing skits for the festival, Mack jotted down several jokes that did not fit the sketch format, saving them with the goal of incorporating them into a sitcom later.

The BBC subsequently commissioned Mack to write a sitcom script, leading to an unaired pilot episode.

Tate was cast as the female lead in that initial pilot before stepping aside to focus on her own project, The Catherine Tate Show.

"Catherine was really successful and she wanted to do her own thing," Mack explained, noting there were no hard feelings surrounding her exit.

Tate's involvement helped shape the final show, prompting a change from its original working title, Number 17.

"A few people said to me they didn't believe me and Catherine were a couple," Mack recalled. "So I said we'll not being going out with each other, we'll just be landlady and tenant. And there might be a spark of romance there but if people say 'I don't believe you're a couple,' we can say 'well, we're not,' hence the name, Not Going Out."

Following Tate's departure, American actress Megan Dodds took over the female lead of landlady Lucy for the first series.

Sally Bretton then assumed the role of Lucy from series two onward, playing opposite Mack's character, Lee.

Cast departures and early cancellation

The sitcom has featured an evolving ensemble cast over two decades, including Timothy West, Abigail Cruttenden, Deborah Grant, and Geoffrey Whitehead.

Miranda Hart initially appeared as an acupuncturist in series one before returning as cleaner Barbara for series two and three, leaving in 2009 to launch her BBC comedy Miranda.

Katy Wix subsequently joined the cast as Daisy, with the show pulling in regular audiences of three to four million viewers per episode.

Despite strong ratings, Mack was left blindsided when the BBC unexpectedly cancelled the sitcom halfway through its third season.

Fans launched an online campaign and bought DVDs in large numbers, prompting the BBC to reverse its decision nine months later and order two more series.

Format changes and co-star fallout

As the show progressed, Mack became concerned that the central premise of a man chasing his landlady was losing its appeal.

"If you fancy your landlady and you constantly want to tell her you like her but you haven't got the confidence to do it, I think it's mildly amusing in your early 30s," Mack said. "But in your early 50s it suddenly becomes a bit creepy..."

The show's dynamic also shifted when co-star Tim Vine decided to leave the cast, causing a temporary fallout with Mack.

"I fancied a change really and it's not really a great reason perhaps," Vine said. "But we've made up about it now, me and Lee. It came as a shock to the system when I first said it to him."

To avoid alarming viewers, Mack wrote Vine's character out using a brief scene explaining he had moved to Germany for work.

Hugh Dennis joined the show to replace Vine, admitting he believed at the time that he was appearing in the sitcom's final series.

Mack decided to resolve the central romance in the series seven Christmas special, where Lee confessed his feelings and married Lucy.

"There was a possibility we'd get married and that would be the end of it, either the BBC didn't want anymore of it, or I didn't want to do anymore of it," Mack said. "At the end, they go off into the distance, just married on the back of the van, it could have been the end."

Transition to family life

Around the same time, Mack was cast opposite Tate in The Smiths, a planned British remake of US comedy Everybody Loves Raymond.

"I sort of realised you can't do both, which one do you want to do?" Mack recalled. "And I thought, why don't I not do Everybody Loves Raymond and just do this and get it to become a family sitcom. So we missed out the formative years but we showed the episode where the baby is born, then cut to seven years later."

The eighth series jumped eight years into the future to follow the couple raising three children.

"He didn't want to do any of the newlywed romance, he wanted to get straight to the aggravation," Bretton said.

Scrapped funeral episode and cast loss

The production faced tragedy in 2020 when actor Bobby Ball, who played Lee's father Frank, died at the age of 76 after testing positive for Covid.

"People often say the best comedy is a comedy that makes you laugh and makes you cry," Mack said. "That's just not true, that's the best comedy-drama. The best comedy is one that makes you laugh, that's why it's called a comedy."

The team filmed a funeral episode as a tribute to Ball, but ultimately decided it was too sad to broadcast.

"After Bobby died we did an episode where it was his funeral," Mack said. "We just couldn't find a way of not making it really sad. So we said, you know what, we've never done this before, let's just drop the whole thing."

Instead, they wrote a new comedic tribute set a year after the character's death, featuring mother-in-law Wendy, played by Deborah Grant, painting an unflattering portrait of Frank.

Sitcom milestone and legacy

Not Going Out ranks as Britain's second longest-running sitcom in history, behind only Last Of The Summer Wine.

"The idea of me doing it 20 years on from now, when I'd be 77, seems like insanity," Mack said. "But then it felt like that 20 years ago! Not Going Out has highs and lows, hard work, good laugh, screaming and shouting, all sorts of emotions with it. But it's the show I'm most proud of."