That was quite challenging because he's quite a fast talker, and I'm not a particularly fast reader - I found myself asking him to slow down.

I started reading this back at the beginning of March and have taken until now to finish it but don’t take this as a reflection on the book at all. This is a very funny memoir that shines a light on the comedy beginnings of Lee Mack and gives you a lot of inside knowledge about his brilliant sitcom Not Going Out. The fact that he didn’t know what he was doing, was at times good, because he didn’t know what he was up against, and bad because he actually knew what he was up against, but again, his story is important. Why is it that one person is a funny bloke down the pub while another actually makes a living by standing up in front of an audience telling jokes?I've tried comic giants like Norman Wisdom and James Corden, but just haven't been able to manage it.

The description of the “need to just do it” / blind faith required to follow “your dreams” was inspiring. Granted, there's not too much personal stuff in here, but it's funny, insightful, and (and I know this sounds a bit insipid) just really, really engaging, compelling even. Some would say many comedians would actually benefit from a spell on the therapist’s couch and I daresay this is a deliberate nod to that.Even the fact he has a stage name – he was born Lee McKillop – helps separate the professional life from the personal. It took half of the book before he stepped on a stage, then when his career as a standup begun and really got going he tends to gloss over those years and is very general and deflects and depth here by joking and ranting on other issues. Lee ascertains throughout the book that comedians are not a special type of breed, but I think he’s pretty damn special. Jokes liberally dot the narrative, and you’re never more than a couple of paragraphs from the next smart-arse comment.

Additionally make sure your User-Agent is not empty and is something unique and descriptive and try again.That might be hard to conceive today, when the barrier to entering the profession is so low, with an open-mic night in every pub and almost as many ‘tutors’ imparting their version of how comedy should be done. After working at the stable for three days he asked if he could try and ride a horse; the trainer, Ginger McCain, agreed and the first horse he ever rode was Red Rum. I really enjoyed all the bits with Angela McHale, and what a fabulous, unique idea to perform them as little sketches. That first moment he was ever in a comedy club and got to see the likes of Eddie Izzard and Steve Coogan, how his career kicked off with a live sketch show he did with Catherine Tate, how Steve Coogan later offered him a TV gig based on those sketches, how he was cast in the American remake of that show opposite Kelsey Grammer, and the agonizing scenes of his So You Think You’re Funny performance going horribly wrong from inside a prop wardrobe. Hilarious and brilliant, it s the kind of book which reminds you why you learned to read in the first place.

One of the great touches with this book is the inclusion of an end-of-chapter discussion with his psychiatrist 'Brian'. So it's testament to how enjoyable Lee Mack's Mack The Life is that I've not only read from cover to cover- but also that I'd happily do so again and again.

He goes into great detail about his creative process, how he came up with it in the first place, how much thought and effort went into it, the key element to his character on the show, the obstacles he had to overcome and how much the show has changed from the original concept. However, despite my initial reaction, the 415 pages flew by, and when I got to the end, I wished there were more pages because I was sad it was over. It’s hard to tell if this is something he could have improved upon or if it was a conscious decision because he thought characterization wasn’t relevant or it was dangerous from a legal standpoint. Lee Mack is a comedian who’s mostly known to me for his work on the hilarious show Would I Lie To You?