After his regular stint as a team captain on the BBC panel show Would I Lie to You?, Lee Mack tries to separate fact from fiction once again this week when he hosts Duck Quacks Don’t Echo, a new Sky1 show in which celebrities and scientists find out the truth about urban myths and bizarre ‘facts’.
Each week, three celebrity guests, beginning on Friday, February 7 with Dara O Briain, Mel C and Ruth Jones, put forward an incredible proposition which is then put to the test by any means necessary.
TV&Satellite Week magazine caught up with the Not Going Out star to find out more…
I’ve loved doing this show… We have a team of boffins who carry out proper experiments to test the facts. In one of the shows, it was claimed that a car was the safest place to be during lightning, so I had to sit in one while it was electrocuted.
There have been some nerve-racking moments… I was pretty nervous in the opening show when I was stuck to the ceiling by my feet to see if Superglue would hold me. My shoes made some worrying noises.
Custard can dance… That’s one of my favourite facts from the show. If you pour custard inside a speaker and blast it with music, it becomes semi-solid and sort of dances.
Wikipedia is odd… I’m not Russ Abbot’s nephew or the kid in the Andrex advert, but the most bizarre fact is true. Red Rum really was the first horse I rode. I was 15 and had a job as a stable lad. When I say rode, we walked round the yard.
I remember the moment I knew I had to be a comedian… I was working in WH Smith and the supervisor said, ‘I cannot over-emphasise the importance of the organisation of stockroom pencils.’ I knew I’d go insane if I stayed.
Awards only matter if you’re not nominated… It's utter nonsense, but doubt does creep in. You can get quite brittle in this job if you’re not careful.
You never feel like you’ve made it… I feel exactly the same now as I did 20 years ago, that I’m slightly battling against it. Showbiz is littered with people now working in B&Q. You always feel two days away from collecting those trolleys in the car park.
The next series of Not Going Out will be the last in the current format… If we get the option to do another, it’s time to make some changes. Maybe Lee and Lucy will get together… Maybe they will be married with kids.
I’ll be shelving stand-up after my upcoming tour… I’m getting old and I want a break. It’s not the performance that’s the problem, it’s the writing workload beforehand.
