Andy Hamilton (I)

The News Quiz] (Radio 4, Friday) returned for a 75th series last week, its host Sandi Toksvig and contestants Dominic Lawson, Jeremy Hardy, Andy Hamilton and Fred MacAulay keen to get at what must be one of the richest current affairs harvests in living memory. As ever, Hamilton had the best lines, noting that the name of Libyan diplomat Moussa Koussa "sounds like an ABBA track" and comparing the all-party select committee responsible for grilling Rupert and James Murdoch to "a panel comprised of Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, Dale Winton, Jim Bowen and Sooty". (Listeners were left to guess which MP most closely resembles a small glove-puppet bear.)

The format may now be as well worn and familiar as an old cardigan, but it's no less welcome for that.

An anthropologist of the future wanting to study the life of British children in the early 21st century would have a field day with Outnumbered, the sitcom beloved of the middle classes because it so precisely seems to reflect their lives.

In the opening episode of the fourth series, shown on Friday, daughter Karen is having a conversation with her mother, Sue, who has just started to work full-time. "It's a mum's duty to pick up her children from school," she opines.

When her mother points out that she herself might like to work when she grows up, her retort is swift: "See, you're getting aggressive. That's what happens to women who work like men. They start turning into men. They get hairy chests and they smash up town centres." Sue exclaims in exasperation, but Karen barely looks up from her colouring. "You're getting aggressive. You'll get hairy." As a mother who works full time and spends a lot of the rest of my life sitting around kitchen tables having remarkably similar chats with my offspring, the exchange made me rock both with laughter and recognition. It is this sense of shared experience that has made Outnumbered, written by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, but also partly improvised by its cast, such a success.

Whereas most television sitcoms, such as My Family, which preceded it on screen last week, rely on incident, plot and comic misunderstanding to raise a laugh, Outnumbered is always at its best when its characters are simply bumbling through the mundane business of their lives: the fight over the Wii controller, the cheese stuck in the toaster, the dinosaur melted in the microwave, the keys which vanish just as you are leaving home.

It is particularly sharp on the vagaries of modern language: this week's conversations about the use of the word "gay" could have been recorded in many homes as a generation of school children apply it in the new sense of "feeble" to the horror of their parents who have co-opted it (against the wishes of a previous generation) to mean homosexual. The glee of the children when their father described the Wii controller as a "nunchuck" - "you said you'd never say that, you said that it wasn't a real word" - was equally astute.

From the anthropological point of view, however, it is the way in which the children behave that is of most interest. The family depicted in Outnumbered is one where the children rule: their parents are hapless, helpless adjuncts to the kids' power. It is not only that the youngsters argue each and every point. It is that on many occasions - such as Karen's decision to attend her uncle's funeral - they get their own way against the wishes of their parents.

In this way, Outnumbered depicts the sea change in behaviour in which a generation brought up to be submissive to its parents, finds itself once again in thrall - but this time to its children. For all its humour, it is essentially true.

Outnumbered: Leader of the comedy revolution?

Combining fine actor improvisation, a smart script and some relatively innocuous storylines to paint a familiar picture of the 'joys' of family life, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's creation has amassed enough prizes to make Alex Ferguson go green-eyed. But with the kids another year older I wondered if it could still cut it.

Hell's intake is at its highest since records began. Satan is beginning to feel the strain and the last thing he needs, quite frankly, is all the palaver of Christmas "In the world of men it's December, so they're having their annual moronfest... a soaked in sentimental tosh about a fat old man who comes down chimneys with presents for children and who, in real life, would probably be shot as a paedophile trespasser." Bah, humbug, Mr Beelzebub. And so, Satan descends upon Earth to do his best to cancel Christmas. Boundaries of taste will be pushed to the limits, as always, by Andy Hamilton and co, but it's the funniest thing on air this fortnight.

Going Off Air with The News Quiz

And so, the last News Quiz of the series is in the bag, with the usual funnies from our esteemed panel of Andy Hamilton, Miles Jupp, Phill Jupitus and Jeremy Hardy.

The News Quiz Benefit

This week's News Quiz lineup consists of Andy Hamilton, Miles Jupp, Sue Perkins and Jeremy Hardy. But as we had a picture of most of them last week, instead here's Sandi with one of our excellent script writers - Simon Littlefield.

Britain's Next Top News Quiz

Tonight's News Quiz on Radio 4 sees the esteemed panel of Francis Wheen and Jeremy Hardy slogging it out against Sue Perkins and Andy Hamilton to win points from Sandi Toksvig by answering questions about topical events. Who will win? We literally don't know*. (*We literally do. The show was recorded on Thursday night. We're just not telling.)

You never know, it might get witty this time. The venerable topical comment panel show returns for another season. Sandi Toksvig chairs, Jeremy Hardy, Sue Perkins and brilliant Andy Hamilton are among the guests. But is the nation in the mood for comedians taking pot shots? I doubt it. These are hard times and likely to get harder. That's why the gloriously spiky surrealism of Jon Holmes's Listen Against in this slot on Tuesdays is such a tonic. If News Quiz wants to be more than a habit it had better shape up. Radio 4's new Controller is listening.

The Brockmans are the most convincing sitcom family since the Royles. The last episode in the latest series of Outnumbered was, as usual, perfectly pitched between exquisite gag-packed comedy and fleeting moments of unsentimental family drama.

But even when dealing with Pete's drunken indiscretion with another woman, or little Karen's road accident, writers Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin never lost sight of their comic intent. Instead, Karen expressed disappointment that dad had broken his wedding vows - "the vicar's going to be furious" - before harassing a kindly nurse with tacit threats of legal action if her jab hurt more than just "a tiny bit" as promised.

The subtly touching closing scene, in which the realistically reunited parents left hospital with a bandaged Karen, as she wittered on delightfully, said more about enduring family ties than any number of schmaltzy homilies.

Although the youngest kids in Outnumbered are exasperating, they're also unaffectedly charming and clearly far funnier and more real than any other children in sitcom history. Partly improvised by child actors Ramona Marquez and Daniel Roche, their skewed righteousness, ruthless inquisitiveness and semi-logical flights of fancy appear to be an endless source of inspired comedy. I just can't work out whether it's a good thing or not that one of the funniest comedy performers in Britain is a partially scripted nine-year-old girl.