Hugh Dennis

Series three of this engagingly downbeat family comedy kicks off as Pete and Sue Brockman - the two of them outnumbered by their three children - go sightseeing in London with Pete's mother. Competing tensions are as usual caught precisely as Jake, now 14, Ben, nine, and Karen, seven, each have very different ideas as to what makes for a good day out, and aren't shy of letting their parents know about it.

Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner play Pete and Sue but their thankless roles as parents in the comedy are mirrored in real life, because they more or less have to stand back and watch the children steal the show. Much of the dialogue is improvised and Karen (Ramona Marquez, who won Best Female Comedy Newcomer at last year's British Comedy Awards) comes up with most of the best lines, including a smart run-through of the dos and don'ts of political correctness. Perhaps these are topped, though, when Ben (Daniel Roche) gives a spot-on, if scatological, analysis of Gordon Brown's political prospects.

A few of the jokes - the confusion between lesbian and Lebanon, for example - are not in their first flush of youth, and the scene in which Dennis is left to clown around on his own is jarring, but otherwise this is a note-perfect sitcom capturing the gentle mundanity of middle-class family life in Britain today.

Hugh Dennis' character sends sex txts

Outnumbered dad Pete follows in the footsteps of Ashley Cole and Vernon Kay as he gets caught sending sex texts.

It's wonderful to have Outnumbered back on our screens for a third series. If you've only just returned from a shopping trip to Mars, it is based on the life and times of two besieged middle-class parents (Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner) who are doing their best to raise three precocious children. It follows a comic tradition that goes back to Joyce Grenfell, but the brilliance of the show is the accuracy of the children's dialogue and the naturalism of their performances. Because so much of it is improvised, it is inevitable that some episodes won't be as strong as others. But tonight's, in which all the family (including the grandmother) go on a day trip to London, is a delight. I was enjoying it so much that I forgot to take notes in order to steal the best jokes.

At last - the family sitcom that reinvented family sitcoms returns for a third series. Back in 2007 Outnumbered was a blast of suburban fresh air; with its knowing kids running rings around bewildered adults, it felt dramatically and hilariously more real than anything that had gone before. It feels fractionally less fresh now but just as funny, as we rejoin the Brockmans on a sightseeing day out in London. Very soon, 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," insists Karen, "I used to believe in wishes and all this nonsense but then my wish about Ben and the hyenas didn't come true."

Controversial series in that a lot of people think it's original and funny and a lot of people think it's a load of cliched nonsense. Well, grow up people. It's both. The sitcom narratives are rubbish old hat, the child actors are funny and Hugh Dennis is Hugh Dennis. The first ep of a new series sees them travel to London sight-seeing and have tired, weary problems with a disabled loo.

Time for series three, and yet again we ask the same question - how is it possible for child actors to be this funny? Episode one opens with Ben and Karen on a London sightseeing trip pondering how lions assisted during the Battle of Trafalgar and 'that king who thought he was made of glass', while parents Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner do an excellent line in bewildered.

The funniest kids on TV are back for a third series. But has Outnumbered become a victim of its own success? Back in 2007, when this was buried apologetically in the schedule's nether regions, there was a real novelty about small children being allowed to dictate proceedings. Now, after bagging three gongs at the British Comedy Awards last year, tonight's episode feels like an extended stand-up gig for Karen and Ben (Ramona Marquez and Daniel Roche).

You sit, arms folded, thinking, "Come on, then. Say something outrageous." Naturally, you don't have long to wait but the bits with the adults in between can feel like a distraction from the main event. That's not to take anything away from the show - just a sign of how hard it is to stay ahead of the game in comedy.

The Brockmans are on a sight-seeing trip around London tonight - an opportunity for Mum and Dad and Gran to be mortally embarrassed in front of a variety of internationally-recognisable landmarks. And from the one-liners the kids come out with, it really can't be much longer before they're invited on to the Have I Got News For You panel.

There are jokes about Gordon Brown tonight and the death of Diana that might have provoked howls of outrage if they were uttered by an adult. They still might but the power of these kids is that they can get away with anything - as their beleaguered parents (Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner) know only too well.

This semi-improvised sitcom continues to amaze in that it is an almost unheard-of example of a middle-class family sitcom that's actually very funny. Caustic, believable and refreshingly unsentimental, it boasts more good gags per episode than most mainstream BBC sitcoms manage in a lifetime.

A large part of its success, of course, is due to the natural performances of its child stars, particularly nine-year-old Ramona Marquez as the maddeningly inquisitive Karen. In this typically joke-packed opening episode, she drags the family - nominally led by selfless straight-men, Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner - through a hectic historical daytrip to central London aimed at gathering research for her school project. She dismisses people who throw money into fountains as "idiots" and plays spot-the-lesbian with her anarchic brother Ben. Once again, it makes child-rearing look like an unyielding nightmare, but it's all the more hilarious for that.

A second series of the comedy written by and starring Andy Parsons continues to follow the exploits of the hapless Scrooby (Andy Parsons), a well-meaning but flawed young man who is desperately trying to better himself through his own website. This week, he tries to become an entrepeneur by misspending his inheritance. Dara O'Briain, Russell Howard, Hugh Dennis all also star - obviously they all had some time free between recording episodes of Mock the Week...

Break out the bunting, The Now Show has hit the big three-0. Yes, it's the 30th series of the award-garlanded topical sketch show fronted by Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt. When the ever-changing world of news is grist to your mill, it must compel you to keep going as more and more things show themselves up as ripe for sideswiping, but will the show start to settle down in its 30s, be not quite so willing to take risks as it was in its 20s? Judging by the high quality of comedy on show in the 29th series, I'd say not. It's the perfect show for the here and now, unless you're listening on iPlayer or to the newly available podcast, in which case it's the perfect show for the now and then.