Right then, it’s the all-new Not Going Out (BBC1), which we didn’t get to last week because there was something more interesting on. Amazingly, this week there isn’t.
So how exactly is it new? Well, Lee Mack and Sally Bretton’s characters Lee and Sally are now married with three children. Which makes it a family sitcom, rather than the pre-family one it used to be. The title still works though, in principle.
Except that in this episode they are going out, because posh pals Anna and Toby (Abigail Cruttenden and Hugh Dennis) have given them tickets to the ballet. Who will babysit though? More specifically, which grandparents? Ah, you see, you recognise the situation if you’re a parent yourself, don’t you? You’ve been there; this is REAL.
Lee’s dad Frank (not at all posh, enjoys a drink, played by Bobby Ball), gets the job. It goes surprisingly well, until little Benji tells Anna to Fbeep off … swearing, almost, on Not Going Out. Very gritty. He learned it from grandpops, he says, but which one?
Suddenly the foundations are laid for a big family barney, involving all generations, plus Anna and Toby. There are misunderstandings, dropped clangers, jokes about class – and the studio audience falls about laughing, as if they’re all saying: “Fbeep you modern comedy, and good taste, and realism, and satire!” It’s all about the gag, still, just as it was in 1979.
There’s nothing at all new about Not Going Out. It’s unoriginal and utterly undemanding but not totally unfunny. I did chuckle a couple of times, I’m ashamed to admit.
At least it’s unapologetic, and even seems proud of its retro-sitcom roots. And people love it: it has survived personnel changes, critical disdain, one assassination attempt. It’s now the longest running comedy currently on television, and it will go on for ever because, ironically, no TV boss is ever again going to dare say it is not going out …
