Tyger Drew-Honey

Chances are you won't know the star of this new sitcom, but Andy Samberg is well known in the US as a regular on Saturday Night Live and as part of the comedy troupe The Lonely Island.

Here he plays an American hippie called Cuckoo, perhaps not the last person on Earth you'd want your ­brilliant daughter to bring home from her gap year in Thailand, but not your first choice for ­son-in-law material, either.

Thanks to Samberg's subtly distracted performance, this is even funnier than it must have been on the page.

Cuckoo is new-age nonsense personified, but still cheesy enough to nick a chat-up line from Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Helen Baxendale and Greg Davies play shocked parents Lorna and Ken, with Tamla Kari as their smitten daughter Rachel and Tyger Drew-Honey from Outnumbered as Rachel's brother.

The scene when he ridicules Cuckoo over his name is even funnier when you remember his own name is Tyger.

Cuckoo is an American hippy who spends his days sleeping, meditating to whale music and spouting new age nonsense. Imagine the horror of Ken and Lorna, a very conventional couple from Lichfield, when their darling daughter returns from her gap year with a ring on her finger and this dreadlocked idler on her arm.

Stand-up comedian Greg Davies (best known as the vindictive headmaster Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners) plays Ken and is a joy to watch: all boggling eyes and flared nostrils. Helen Baxendale is more restrained as Lorna, Outnumbered star Tyger Drew-Honey plays the petulant younger brother and US actor Andy Samberg, a former Saturday Night Live regular, is brilliantly barmy as Cuckoo. This first episode takes a while to find its feet but the final scene is a corker.

New sitcom starring giant actor Greg Davies as patriarch Ken who is introduced to his new son-in-law Cuckoo for the first time in the arrivals lounge on his daughter Rachel's return from her gap year in Thailand. It's an understandable shock, particularly as Cuckoo is a colossal bellend. This travelling hippy (Andy Samberg) has spiritual psychobabble up the wazoo and hopes to loaf around his new family home while he writes a book. All but Ken and his son Dylan (Tyger Drew-Honey) are taken in by his cod philosophy, even his wife Lorna (Helen Baxendale); it's a pretty promising start.

Outnumbered to end after 5th series, says Drew-Honey

Outnumbered star Tyger Drew-Honey has confirmed that the show's fifth series will be its last.

I am still a little worried that Harvey Easter, the indefatigably cheery protaganist of Mr Blue Sky, will someday soon rip the mask of optimism from his face and go on a killing rampage, starting with his live-in son-in-law-to-be. As this young man, a grimestep DJ who is paid in energy drinks and therefore returns to the Easter household at 5am on a Red Bull high, is called Kill-R, it will give Harvey the opportunity to snarl: "Who's the killer now?" as he takes aim.

When I reviewed last year's first series of Andrew Collins' slow-burning hit comedy, I thought Harvey was bound to 'reverse into gloom' at some stage. The second series opened with his entire family kidnapped and replaced almost wholesale by the cast of TV's Outnumbered, but plucky old Harvey just got on with the job of being happy.

So Mark Benton's Harvey, a performance which is an essay in finely nuanced felicity (and how much harder must this be to play than the sobs of a broken man?) didn't falter even though the detached irony of Rebecca Front, last year's Mrs E, was replaced by Claire Skinner bringing with her Tyger Drew-Honey, both from Outnumbered. Skinner is the leading exponent of wringing comedic value out of the middle-class mum, determined never to yell "Because I said so." And I'm sure I'll get used to her in this, but for now I can't imagine her without chiselled-jawed, puppy-eyed Hugh Dennis as the husband who is a perpetual disappointment.

Tyger took over the role of 16-year-old Robbie with aplomb, asking for money to buy fruit - street slang for drugs - while their older child and bride-to-be, Charlie, was played by Rosamund Hanson with a quirkiness heightened by what was either a speech impediment or a plethora of tongue piercings. The darkness in this solidly engineered comedy, it transpires, is not embedded in Harvey's alter-ego, but swirls all around him as he attempts to hold it back like the tone-deaf, out-of-condition superhero he is.

Miles Jupp joins Let's Dance For Sports Relief

The Cuban Brothers, Outnumbered's Tyger Drew-Honey and Miles Jupp have all joined the line-up for Let's Dance for Sport Relief.

Vic Reeves is on a mission to provide answers to curious questions. He has a library staffed by a team of fact-finders, including Tyger Drew-Honey (Jake from Outnumbered). Today, the team work out if dinosaurs could ever return to roam the earth, whether animals can be superheroes, and if robots will ever take over the world.

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.

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.