Lee Mack brags ‘brilliant’ gags helped make ‘The 1% Club’ a hit

Lee Mack has boasted his “brilliant” jokes helped make ‘The 1% Club’ a hit.

The comic, 55, is hosting a third series of the show on STV and said even though he can’t take credit for the popular format on the IQ-testing series he thinks his gags while making it were top quality.

He tells Richard Herring, 56, on the comic’s ‘RHLSTP’ podcast: “I can’t take any credit for it because it’s not my format.

“On the pilot episode I said, ‘There is no way these 100 contestants are going to laugh at my jokes, they will be too busy trying to win the £100,000.

“I didn’t get any laughs, but I did think, ‘This is a good format as my jokes are so brilliant.’

“They have cast people who are bright and fun and, even though you think about serious quizzers doing it, no same person will get it right every time.”

Despite fronting family-friendly shows such as ‘The 1% Club’ and his ‘Not Going Out’ sitcom, Lee has hit out at cancel culture by saying too many jokes are being judged for their content instead of their context.

He told Gabby Logan’s ‘Mid Point’ podcast: “In principle, there isn’t anything that you can't do a joke about, nothing.

“But for me, the joke has to be funnier than it is shocking.

“So the more shocking the subject matter the better the joke has to be.

“And there are some subject matters that are so shocking no one is good enough to think of a joke that is funnier than it is shocking.

“So in principle you can do a joke about anything, but in practice you can’t because no-one’s that good.

“You could go, ‘What about this horrific event, would you be able to do a joke?’ In principle, yes.

“But I could spend two years trying to write a magic joke about it that was more funny than shocking, and I’d never achieve it.

“And that's the problem. Sometimes comedians are doing jokes that just aren’t funny enough, because they have to be even funnier when it’s that shocking… intention seems to have gone out the window now. It doesn’t matter what someone’s intention was, it’s what you did that matters.

“I think that’s a shame. I think the intention of why you said something is the most important thing.”