Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Lee Mack, Sally Bretton, Bobby Ball, Deborah Grant, Geoffrey Whitehead.
The absurd lengths that some people will go to deliver the perfect Christmas is rarely seen as being a laughing matter, a day of peace hijacked by the sheer need to be triumphant and the one-upmanship of being considered the best parent in the world drives many to actions they wouldn’t even dream of committing the rest of the year.
However, laughter is the greatest leveller at Christmas, and for Lee Mack and Sally Breton, the challenges of their life, the strange and ridiculous events surrounding the Christmas special of their show, Not Going Out, just get more insanely beautiful and crowning the glory of farce that has been missing from the Christmas television schedules over the years.
When an opportunist thief threatens to put Lee and Lucy’s last minute Christmas Eve shopping in a state of emergency, when a giant inflatable Santa becomes the rescue craft to save the day and when it could have all been avoided if they had taken time to listen to Lee’s father, that is the true meaning of family life at Christmas in one sensational charade; not one of perfection, but of not being in control, of dealing with life in the best way possible, outrunning the bull as you have a target painted on your shirt.Â
Driving Home For Christmas sees Lee Mack’s alter ego enjoy a freedom away from the studio setting which only enhances the exaggerated everyday problems and which the series has gathered strength over the course of ten series so far, one that has become, quite rightly, one of the finest comedies the U.K. has produced in the last twenty years.
It is with Sally Bretton that Lee Mack shines, the natural chemistry and trust that has been in evidence and flourished since season two has matured and as one particular moment in the Christmas special shows, become intrinsic to the mayhem in which other comedies have not been able to match.
Chris Rea may have sung the virtues of Driving Home For Christmas for decades, but even he could not have imagined a journey as fraught or as funny as the one offered by the Not Going Out team this year.
Ian D. Hall