Maybe I was out when the trumpets were blowing but it seemed to me that Would I Lie To You? slipped back onto BBC1 on Friday night for its ninth, yes, ninth, series without much of a fanfare. Which is a shame. This is one of my favourite panel shows. It is devoid of cynicism, packed full of laughs. It's one of the few panel shows clean enough to go out pre-watershed, but it is never, ever boring.

When I wrote about Taskmaster earlier this week there was a kerfuffle over the lack of female representation on it. If there is one criticism here the same could be said for the first episode of WILTY. Women were represented by newsreader Moira Stewart. I don't need to list the various great female comics around at the moment – surely one was available?

But take this gripe out of the equation and it’s hard to complain about the show, even though, simpleton that I am, I’ve never quite fully grasped the rules. When, for instance, Danny Dyer had to claim he wore a tiny zebra mask to avoid hassle on a visit to a zoo maybe he purposely said he didn’t know the location of the zoo to throw the other team off the scent?

Likewise when Jon Richardson hesitated over saying that he was camping with the Woodcraft Folk when he wet the bed but won a tidiness competition the pause for thought was there to cast doubt on the veracity of the story. Aha, I think I’m getting it now…

While the guests are good the other delight is the chemistry between questionmaster Rob Brydon and team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack. Mitchell has cultivated a nicely argumentative attitude on WILTY, while juicy sparks fly between Mack and Brydon. During the round when we had to guess the connection between a special guest and a panellist Mack coaxed Brydon stagefront and did a martial arts move, landing him on the floor. Brydon faked injury so well he was asked by the production staff if he could continue.

But then the programme is all about faking it. Joe Lycett’s story was about pretending to have a imaginary dog called Brian to scare off potential aggressors in the street.

Children are brought up not to lie, but maybe that’s not the way we should educate them. Who knows, if they end up as accomplished as this lot at telling porkies it might get them on BBC1 on primetime.

Fridays, BBC1, 8.30pm. Watch the first episode here.