Kate tries clown classes after unsuccessfully getting Lee to go to them. You couldn't really call her own attempts a success. To repay Kate Lee goes on a date with Lucy Moss, an author whose book, about her turbulent life, was published by Kate's company. It's a less than happy event, as Lee proves less than great at being serious. With Lee out of the way Tim tries to make things up with Kate.

Serious

Tim's 94-year-old grandmother dies. Kate accuses Lee of not being in touch with his emotions when he fails to tell her. As penance he sees an expensive psychotherapist, who gets a bit too close to the truth. Tim, flirts with Kate, less than successfully, while she comforts him at his grandmother's funeral.

Death

Ruth, an Australian friend of Kate's, comes to stay and Lee is persuaded to pretend to be Tim. Lee gets a job handing out leaflets at a shopping centre, but soon falls foul of a local youth.

Aussie

Lee starts teaching Kate to drive. His (or her) lack of success seems to stress him out and Kate notices. She persuades him to try some yoga and given his track record he doesn't take it seriously. He is banished to have acupuncture while Tim tries his hand at teaching Kate how to drive. He does surprisingly well until Lee admits that he's taking tranquillizers during an increasingly speed fuelled drive in the countryside. Big question...will she pass?

Stress

Kate and Lee are forced to take in a lodger, a surly 14-year-old boy called Nicky. Lee's attempts to bond with the teenager prove less than successful, while Tim and Nicky discover they have quite a lot in common. Meanwhile, Kate tries to persuade a carnivorous Great Dane to become a vegetarian with unfortunate results.

Lee finally manages to get a job, as a caretaker. But taking up the new post involves moving out of the flat. Kate interviews potential new flatmates including Pete, and Tim sees an opportunity to get back together with Kate. Lee's new boss proves to be a hard taskmaster. So, will Lee stick at the job or throw in the towel and move back in with Kate?

Caretaker

Tim decides to sell the flat, so Lee sets to work putting off prospective buyers.

Mortgage

Lucy persuades Lee to pretend to be gay after she lies to a business acquaintance Guy, who she was told is gay himself, by telling him she lives with a gay flatmate to prove she is not homophobic. However, Guy soon starts to get suspicious and tests Lee's sexuality by taking him to a gay bar. Later, Guy overhears Lee saying to Tim, who had started to think Lee was gay, that he is not gay. When Lucy then explains to Guy what happened, he reveals he is not gay and he and Lucy kiss.

Lucy and Guy are going out with each other, and Guy has practically moved in. This annoys Lee who thinks Guy is too old for her. Lee soon discovers that Guy owns a lap dancing club. While at the club, Lee and Tim see Rose (Thaila Zucchi), a librarian that Tim has been seeing, and discover she is a lapdancer. Tim later dumps her, but then changes his mind. However, Rose refuses to get back together. Meanwhile, Lucy dumps Guy but they soon get back together but agree to take their relationship more slowly.

Librarian

When Guy's daughter Chloe gets appendicitis, Lee and Tim are left looking after her son Dillon while Guy and Lucy visit her. While in their care, Dillon swallows a subbuteo football and Lee and Tim have problems locating it, and try to think of ways to get it out of his body. However, it later turns out Dillon did not swallow it after all. Lucy is worried about the age gap between her and Guy.

Baby

In an effort to appear as intellectual as Lucy's friends, Lee shows off his 'knowledge' of the art world - holding forth on the subject of an unknown artist, who his cleaner Barbara has told him is the next big thing. When Lucy takes the advice and invests a fortune in the artist's work, Lee is left trying to prevent her from finding out the artist is actually a nobody.

As Lucy and Guy's relationship intensifies, Lee starts to ponder his lack of a girlfriend and, encouraged by Barbara, tries speed dating. Tim is forced to go on a disastrous date with Barbara in order to prove that he sees her as more than 'the help'.

Dating

Guy showers Lucy with expensive gifts and whisks her away for a weekend.

Gangster

Lee's plan to spend time alone with Lucy at Christmas is threatened.

Murder at Christmas

Lee is shocked when Lucy announces that she is pregnant and he wonders if he could accidentally be the baby's father.

Pregnant

Lee wins a £1000 after winning an essay writing competition. A journalist shows up to interview Lee but expects him to be disabled after reading his story.

Winner

Lee and Tim ask a lesbian couple who have moved into the building over for dinner. They are shocked when Lucy discovers a side of herself that she never knew existed.

Lee and Tim decide to try and throw Lucy a 30th birthday party but they both have different ideas. Lee is not happy when Lucy shows up at the party with a man and decides to try and get rid of him.

Party

Lucy isn't happy with the noise a new neighbour is making. She asks both Lee and Tim to talk to him but both are scared too. Tim decides to take up boxing so that he will have more courage. Lee ends up going to confront the man.

Neighbour

Lucy is stressed. She has an important speech to make at a Recruitment Conference and nobody to help her write it. Lee sees an opportunity to impress her and offers his services but at the expense of Tim, who also thinks he's the best man for the job. What starts off as a small job now turns into a competition between Tim and Lee to not only see who can come up with the wittiest lines but also to establish which of them Lucy likes best.

Speech

Lee is shocked when he finds out that Lucy is thinking about getting married to Pavlov so that he will be able to remain in the country. As Lee attempts to get her to change her mind her family and other friends think that Pavlov is perfect for her.

Marriage

Lee's father turns up at the flat unannounced. This is the man who walked out of the family home when Lee was four, never paid his maintenance and ate Lee's goldfish. Lee wants him out of the flat but Lucy tells him that the only way forward is to forgive and forget. Unfortunately, Lee's dad's behaviour makes this virtually impossible for Lee to achieve.

Absent Father Christmas

After a night spent out clubbing, Tim returns to the flat wearing the wrong coat, and convinces Lee to help him return it to its owner.

Drugs

Lee's past catches up with him when a young woman appears on his doorstep and asks for a cup of sugar.

Debbie

Lee promises to stop treating Lucy's flat as if he owns it - but not before he has hired it out to a film director.

Movie

Lucy and Tim are distraught. Their parents' 30 year marriage is at an end and their father has moved out of the family home - and into Lee's bedroom.

Dancing

When an old lady wanders into Lucy's flat and makes herself at home on the sofa, Lee doesn't know what to do with her.

Fireworks

Lee dreams of a perfect life with Lucy, but can the reality ever match up?

Life on Mars Bars

When Tim joins a band at work and Lucy falls for the lead guitarist, Lee becomes jealous, and decides that if he can't beat them he should join them.

Band

Lee's lazy weekend is wrecked when his scrounging father turns up unexpectedly. Having just come out of hospital he needs somewhere to stay for the weekend. Will Lee take on the demanding role of carer?

Dads

In a desperate bid to prove his manliness, Lee joins Tim, Daisy and Lucy on a camping weekend in the middle of a dark spooky forest.

Camping

To impress Lucy, Lee starts training for a 10 kilometre Fun Run only to injure himself immediately. In an effort to hide the injury from Lucy, he gets himself a secret sports massage, but this just leads to more trouble.

Running

Lucy finds herself working on a Government initiative encouraging men to regularly check themselves for lumps. Eager to please Lucy, Lee follows the campaign's advice and discovers something he wasn't expecting.

Examination

After Lucy suffers a mild indiscretion whilst drunk and claims to have no memory of the event, she and Lee embark on an experiment with a bottle of home-made potato hooch to prove once and for all that you can remember what happens when you're mashed.

Drunk

Lucy accidentally runs over a pet rabbit belonging to the daughter of an important client.

Rabbit

On a holiday to Eastern Europe, Lee, Daisy and Lucy become stuck on a cable car.

Skiing

Lee takes advantage of Lucy's new-found skills as a relationship counsellor to patch things up with his father.

Therapy

Lee does what he has to do to stop Lucy from flirting with the male delegates at a three-day annual trade conference in order to get herself work.

Conference

Lee decides that the best way to get Lucy to notice him is to make her jealous. Now all he has to do is find himself a girlfriend.

Rachel

Lee is forced to fight for Lucy's attention when her first love reappears on the scene.

Play

When Lucy's god-daughter is suddenly dumped on her the night before the girl's birthday party, Lucy and Lee have to come up with an appropriate entertainment for fourteen nine-year-olds.

Magic

Lee spends a long weekend on his a boat with Lucy, even though she is terrified of water.

Boat

When Lucy has her handbag stolen from right under Lee's nose, he feels the need to prove his manliness over and over and over again.

Mugging

Lee's big mouth has got him and Lucy invited to a christening party thrown by new neighbours Toby and Anna, and now they have no time to find the perfect present for the baby who has everything.

Christening

When Lucy decides it is time to have a baby, she is surprised to find the whole family taking a personal interest in the conception.

Donor

Lucy aspires to be friends with her posh new neighbours Toby and Anna, but she hasn't reckoned on Lee dragging her back down to earth.

Anna

In an attempt to impress Lucy with his intellectual prowess, Lee joins Daisy as a contestant on the TV quiz show Pointless.

Pointless

Frank's drinking becomes a problem and forces Lee and Lucy to reassess the living arrangements in the flat.

Alcohol

No matter what happens, Lucy's surprise party for her parents' anniversary must remain a secret or it won't be a surprise. So why she tells Lee about it is anyone's guess.

Surprise

Flying off on a summer holiday, Lucy and Daisy endure the worst flight of their lives when Lee gets a bad case of the jitters on the plane.

Plane

Lee spends time in the bar with Toby worrying that the woman of his dreams is drifting further away.

Lucy

The will-they-won't-they tension reaches new highs in this epic series finale for Christmas that sees Lucy and Lee in previously uncharted emotional waters.

Christmas Special

Lee Mack, Sally Bretton and Katy Wix introduce a compilation of out-takes from across the various series.

The Out-takes

After eight years of marriage, Lee and Lucy disagree over how to keep the romance alive.

Romance

Lucy causes offence by choosing the wrong babysitter.

Babysitting

Lee's hopes for a stress-free ferry trip to France with Lucy and the children are dashed when they don't leave enough time for the car journey.

Lee and Lucy play hot tub fantasy date with Anna and Toby, causing them to end up in hot water.

Hot Tub

Lee is worried that Charlie is getting a reputation at school for being the class clown.

Charlie

If Lee and Lucy's marriage wasn't in trouble before they go to marriage counselling, it is by the time they leave.

Marriage Guidance

Are Lee and Lucy ready for another child?

Enough

Lucy's father reluctantly allows Lee to help Lucy clear up the builder's mess in their new kitchen extension.

Home Improvements

As a surprise for Lee's birthday, Lucy invites the whole family to join them in an escape room.

Escape Room

A missing toy keyring causes a rift between Lee and Lucy and best friends, Toby and Anna.

Stolen

To teach the children to be more responsible Lee and Lucy get a family pet.

Pets

Lee and Lucy open up a can of worms when they cancel dinner with Toby and Anna at the last moment.

Pants on Fire

Lee and Lucy object to the school lollipop man handing out lollipops to the kids.

Lollipop Man

Encouraged by Anna, Lucy considers whether a breast augmentation is for her.

Bust Up

A sponsored parachute jump raises not just money for Toby's hospital but questions about Lee's courage as well.

Parachute

Can Lee and Lucy’s friendship with Toby and Anna survive a long weekend in a damp cottage in the New Forest?

Holiday Share

Lee is outraged that the twins have started sex education at school and resolves to teach them everything he knows about the facts of life before Miss Anstis corrupts them.

Facts of Life

When Charlie’s school gets a bad Ofsted rating, Lee and Lucy start looking around for alternative schools. Despite Frank's protests, Geoffrey and Wendy offer to pay to send Charlie to a private school, which presents Lee and Lucy with a moral dilemma.

Schooling

Lee decides to gatecrash Lucy's favourite television show and watch it with her. Lucy is not best pleased, especially when Lee can't remember the name of the leading actor.

Memory

Unable to convince Lucy that he didn’t smash her precious antique vase - an heirloom that belonged to her grandmother - Lee summons the family to a meeting to flush out the culprit.

Whodunnit?

Lucy takes the kids away to her parents while Lee stays in the house to oversee the building work in their kitchen. Unfortunately, the builder Lee has employed to do the job has an annoyingly relaxed attitude to deadlines.

Builder

Social niceties are stretched to snapping point when Lee and Lucy take in a package for their neighbour and inadvertently discover that it contains an embarrassing object that Lee now has to return. That proves to be easier said than done.

Small Package

To celebrate their anniversary, Lee and Lucy plan a friendly night of quizzing with Toby and Anna in their local pub, but the evening is derailed when neither couple can bear to lose to their partners and the foursome splits into rival teams.

Pub Quiz

When Lee's feckless dad, Frank, announces his engagement, Lee cannot believe that any woman would want to marry him and sets out to find out exactly what is wrong with her.

Carol

When Lee joins Facebook for the first time and makes contact with an ex-girlfriend from twenty years ago, Lucy is less than pleased.

Old Acquaintance

A family visit to the World War Two war graves in Normandy unearths a piece of family history that is best left buried.

It’s been over a year since Frank’s passing and the always lovely Wendy, rediscovering a long lost love for painting, decides to create a very unique tribute in oils. How can Lee and Lucy break the news that they don’t necessarily like the likeness?

Painting

When Lee accidentally sends a rude text about Anna to Lucy, he makes the stupid mistake of sending it to Anna herself. Lee and Lucy now face the impossible task of stealing Anna's phone and deleting the text before she reads it.

Text

When Lee promises Lucy that he will make more of an effort to be friendly with other parents in the playground, he makes the mistake of starting with Keith.

Friend

Recovering from knee surgery, Lee sits by the window day after day, spying on his neighbours through a pair of binoculars.

Front Window

Lee does jury service and joins eleven other jurors to debate whether the accused is guilty or not. A simple enough task - until Lee decides to put the other jurors on trial.

Jury

Lee organises a family camping trip into the back of beyond, where they soon discover that no one can hear them scream.

Tent

When Lee and Lucy are asked to cover for Anna on more than one occasion, so that she can go out at night and have secret Italian lessons, they suspect the worst – that she is having an affair. Lee decides that it is up to him to tell Toby that his marriage is in jeopardy and sets about finding the evidence.

Italian Lessons

Lee's lifestyle catches up on him and he is forced to wait on a hospital ward for routine surgery on his gallbladder until his blood pressure comes down. But visits from the parents-in-law and Anna and Toby, who arrive to ask him a question he doesn't want to hear, ensure that his stress levels remain dangerously high.

Hospital

To take advantage of three free tickets to Adventure Canyon Theme Park, Lee takes Mollie out of school for a day and gets into trouble with the new head teacher, Miss Anstis. Now all he has to do is think of an excuse to justify Mollie's absence. What could be simpler than a trip to the dentist?

Day Out

Lee wakes up inside a coffin and can't remember how he got there, until a phone call from Lucy reminds him what he’d been doing that afternoon. Now all he needs to do is keep Lucy in the dark as to his exact location and work out how to escape.

Coffin

It’s Lucy's birthday. To celebrate, Geoffrey and Wendy take Lee, Lucy, Toby and Anna for a trip on a vintage steam train. But Lee's decision to play Poirot when a stranger turns up unannounced in their carriage risks Lucy’s special day being ruined.

Train

Lucy has cooked a special meal so that she and Lee can spend an evening in without distractions to talk about the state of their marriage. But Lee is obsessed with a beeping noise in the house that he can’t find, and the food is soon forgotten.

Beep

When Lee goes to watch Benji playing football for a local under-13 team, he is unable to restrain himself on the touchline and becomes the competitive dad that all other parents want to avoid. Undaunted by the disapproval of Toby, who coaches the team, Lee sets about rigging the vote for the player of the year.

Football

Lee is a childish northerner who lives in a fancy penthouse apartment in London who goes through a variety of jobs such as a janitor and ice cream man, as well as attempting relationships with female flatmates. His best mate, Daily Mail reading, middle-class citizen Tim is always there to stop Lee from getting in trouble, or not? Mayhem is never far away with cleaner Barbara who has never done an honest day's work in her life.

All Episodes of Not Going Out

Browse all episodes of Not Going Out

Season 1

Serious

Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 10/6/2006

Death

Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/13/2006

Aussie

Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/20/2006

Stress

Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/26/2006

Kid

Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 11/3/2006

Caretaker

Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/10/2006