Would I Lie To You has perhaps the greatest duo of TV panel show members of all time: David Mitchell and Lee Mack.
There are plenty of shows where just one of them has appeared as a guest. Have I Got News For You, QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Was It Something I Said? And they are all, at times, face-splittingly funny shows.
![<i>Would I Lie to You?</i>: From left, David Mitchell, Rob Brydon and Lee Mack.](/web/20161225220019im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/l/w/z/t/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gp83fb.png/1464935262491.jpg)
But none are as reliable as WILTY. Hosted by Rob Brydon, the show has two teams of three panel members, helmed by Mack and Mitchell respectively. The other panel guests are a spree of comedians, TV hosts, newsreaders, authors and actors.
Everyone tries to win points by telling a true or untrue story, being interrogated as to its veracity and then receiving the opposing team's judgment: true or lie.
Mack and Mitchell are the show's greatest asset. Their banter, a brilliantly orchestrated mock class battle, drills into the apparent poshness of Mitchell's background and Mack's played-for-laughs working class manner.
They have both said they are, in fact, very similar people. But few can skewer Mack and Mitchell's personal peccadilloes as well as each other, or top their whip-smart chops attacking the veracity of competing panellists.
To see Mitchell in full angry sarcastic rant against apparent illogicality is a joy to behold.
Take Mitchell's attack on comedian David O'Doherty and his story of trying to warm the legs of swans: "The swans. You've tried to put a leg warmer on a swan. How the hell did ... A swan?
"So you're trying to feed it over the webbing and it doesn't get cross? A great big big beak on a ... They break your arm and then the Queen eats them ... I'd just like to say, Rob, if it's true, I don't care."
Mack has an endless mine of spurious tales.
"I can write so well with my foot that to save time writing Christmas cards I simultaneously write one card with my hand and one card with my foot," he said once before giving a demonstration.
Mack will always give a demonstration. His physical representation of how he can tell whether people drink tea or coffee just by listening to their stomach seems entirely plausible.
Pretending to tell the truth under the gaze of Lee Mack and David Mitchell should replace the law system in some cases. It would be funnier, yes, but they would also get to the truth of the matter, or perhaps the unbelievable lie, in a lickety-split five minutes.
This would give them time to bring in, as WILTY does, a Mystery Guest. Usually a rumpled-looking person in nondescript trousers and quiet hair, they stand silently while panel members try to prove they know this person in some way.
We should all try this. Perhaps bringing an apparent stranger to a friend's house and telling everyone this is the lady who taught us to drive in a hearse, or the man who sold us a hamster, taught us judo or helps us relax via a series of gift-wrapping videos.
Sometimes, just sometimes, a guest outshines these two.
Everyone should watch comedian Bob Mortimer's stories of a dictaphone and the robotic "hand lion", being able to split an apple or burning down his house. Or comic Kevin Bridges' infamous explanation of accidentally buying a horse on holiday in Bulgaria.
The latter, a peerless lesson in how to appear to be lying when you are really telling the truth, is assisted by Bridges' beautifully gormless facing-the-headmaster expression throughout.
"I never thought I was buying anything," he says. " I thought I was renting."
Mitchell: "Were you not surprised that it cost you the equivalent of 90 pounds to hire a horse for 25 minutes?"
Bridges: "It was 25 minutes each. There was two of us. So we chipped in for a horse for 25 minutes each."
Mitchell: "But still, even if you thought you were going to get 25 minutes each that's a lot isn't it?"
Bridges: "Well it's an hour. You need to give the horse a break, as I said."
Truth or lie?
Would I Lie To You? ABC TV, Wednesday, 9:31pm.