Daniel Roche

My secret life: Daniel Roche, 12, actor

'Kids my age think they should rebel'.

Video: The cast and writer of Outnumbered on Christmas

The chaotic Brockman family from the hit comedy series Outnumbered are back for a festive special this weekend.

They've decided to go away for Christmas, but as per usual it's not exactly stress-free.

Two of the stars of the series, Tyger Drew-Honey and Daniel Roche, joined the show's writer Andy Hamilton on the BBC Breakfast sofa to talk about Christmas in the Brockman household.

Tonight in the semi-improvised family sitcom, another guest arrives to stay, just as the Brockmans are trying to get rid of Auntie Angela (Samantha Bond). Mother Sue (Claire Skinner) has to make a decision about the girlfriend of eldest son Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey). Meanwhile, stars of the show Ben and Karen (Daniel Roche and Ramona Marquez) discuss dreams, the Mafia and trampolining bears. As one does. This is the last in the series but fans shouldn't despair - the Brockmans will be back for a Christmas special.

There are points in a good episode when Outnumbered picks up enough farcical momentum to snowball into something glorious. Tonight it happens when three storylines intertwine. Revealing what two of them are would spoil things, but the third and funniest involves Ben trying to work out an act for his school talent contest.

Should he try sword swallowing? Or singing? (Daniel Roche does a fine Louis Armstrong.) Perhaps he should juggle lobsters and crabs? Or conduct a choir of parrots? The idea Ben finally settles on sends Roche off on a minor tour de force with some lovely old-school gags and comedy business that's all his own.

"What the hell has happened in this toilet, it's like a urine tsunami," cries Sue (Claire Skinner), prompting tonight's male/female divide in the Brockman household. The girls hit the shops while the men are forced to tackle household chores. Ben (Daniel Roche) concocts a Heston Blumenthal-style dinner with dire consequences. Meanwhile Karen (Ramona Marquez) has her eye on a pair of leopard-print heels. Now in its fourth series, this acclaimed sitcom still has legs. But as the kids get older, their growing self-awareness strains the programme's naturalistic style.

Now back for its fourth series, the main question concerning Outnumbered is, 'Is it still funny after all this time?' The answer would appear to be 'Yes' - mind you, the fact that the first episode went out after My Family probably helped.

Eldest son Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey) is getting into a stage of typical teenage stroppiness, rallying against other members of the family and their attitudes, such as his mother Sue's (Claire Skinner) views of gay stereotypes; troublesome Ben (Daniel Roche) is refusing to wear his Wii safety cord and is under the belief that Jeremy Clarkson is gay; and curious Karen (Ramona Marquez) has an idea for stopping people stealing mobile phones by using bubonic plague.

The parents also have their own trouble, with father Pete (Hugh Dennis) quitting his job as a history teacher over a point of principle (and seemingly his own stupidity) and now working as a supply teacher, meaning Sue is working full time - and Karen is not happy about that. Pete is also having trouble with a eulogy at the funeral of his late gay uncle, which Sue finds amousing.

Outnumbered is still one of the best sitcoms around as far as I'm concerned. The semi-improvisation with the children is a joy to watch, especially when it comes to Karen. Let's hope it continues to keep the pace up.

Tyger Drew-Honey says co-stars are like a real family

Tyger Drew-Honey, star of BBC comedy Outnumbered, reckons that his co-stars Daniel Roche and Ramona Marquez, who play his sibling Ben and Karen, have become like a real family to him.

Another chance to catch the first episode of the third series of the family sitcom that reinvented family sitcoms. We rejoin the Brockmans on a sightseeing day out in London. Scarily precocious Karen (Ramona Marquez) is grumbling that she wants to go somewhere 'more World War Two-ish', while uncontrollable Ben (Daniel Roche) is climbing on one of the Trafalgar Square lions and stabbing it with a ruler. "Die!" he shouts. "Die, Aslan, die!" Throughout, dad Pete (Hugh Dennis) wears his fixed expression of pain and confusion, like a baited bear. As a portrait of parenthood, it's terrific, even when the plotting, which includes a weary old joke involving a disabled loo, lets the side down. And the dialogue is as sharp as ever. "Look, mummy," says Karen, "I used to believe in wishes and all this nonsense, but then my wish about Ben and the hyenas didn't come true."

Giving the job of the titular outlaw to Outnumbered's Daniel Roche, who basically already is William Brown in everything but name, was a stroke of casting genius. He has the perfect naughty face for hiding in bushes, firing a bow and arrow, and he just was William when he stomped around the Botts' garden with a sullen expression and a pair of fairy wings, while Violet Elizabeth commanded him to "kith me or I'll cwy".

Simon Nye's charming mini-series set the story of the middle-class Brown family and the nouveau riche Botts in the Fifties and Martin Jarvis's voiceover was as gentle as William was roughy-toughy.

One gripe. The gender politics are unbelievably retrograde. Girls are fluffy, silly, emotionally manipulative nightmares. Boys are outdoorsy, inquisitive bullies. As Outnumbered has taught us, boys and girls can be all things. And they are equally annoying.

The importance of seizing life's windows of opportunity was not lost on the team behind the Beeb's other post-Christmas winner [aside from Toast], Just William. Not that it would have taken a casting director of genius to realise that Daniel Roche - the 11-year-old actor who played Ben in Outnumbered - was born to play William Brown, Richmal Crompton's schoolboy anti-hero.

With his natural curls and even more natural scowl, Roche brought Brown to life as no other child actor has before. But what really elevated Simon (Men Behaving Badly) Nye's adaptation were the moments inbetween young William's adventures and the painstaking attention to detail of its early 1950s period setting.

With an adult cast including Rebecca Front and Daniel Ryan as the long-suffering senior Browns, and Warren Clarke and Caroline Quentin as the nouveau riche Botts, Nye's four episodes - perhaps taking inspiration from The Simpsons - fully appreciated that there was room here for all the characters to manoeuvre. There were storylines involving William's sister Ethel, subplots based around the staff at William's school, visits from members of the extended Brown family and, of course, the sthpectacularly sthpoilt Violet Elizabeth.

The sharpness of the script was evident from episode one, in which William's brother Robert, newly obsessed with Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones, had this exchange with his mother: Robert [mumbling]: "I need to go somewhere." Mrs Brown [not looking up]: "If you're passing the shop could you buy a loaf of bread?" Robert: "No, I need to escape. I'm going to join a biker gang." Mrs Brown: "Righto. Maybe you should borrow Mr Nuttley's motorbike and see if you like it first."

Who of us brought up in the stifling atmosphere of the suburbs will not have had a similar early life exchange, in which a burning passion is reduced, with a seen-it-all-sigh, to the status of hobby?

Thus, while Toast and Just William were both unashamedly nostalgic, both also carried off the crucial trick of ringing true to a 21st-century audience. Good writing, fine acting and a past (unlike the foreign country of Upstairs, Downstairs) that we can all remember and relate to.

It's not too much to ask for is it? And especially at a time of year when, for many of us, the televison screen is the window of opportunity in the corner of all of our living-rooms.