Outnumbered

Outnumbered series 5 - what's new?

The Thick of It's Rebecca Front will make a guest appearance when the growing Brockman family return to our screens in early 2014.

Last year the Brockmans decided to go away for Christmas: this year they're throwing a party at the heart of their community. But the bosom of the neighbourhood is not as pillowy and restful as they might like. The guests include Norris, who has opinions; Ray, who used to be a weatherman and doesn't seem to have coped well afterwards;
and Jane, whose romantic life is unmanageable.

Gran turns up for a surprise visit, Karen is online most of the time and at the window, there's the gentle, then insistent, tap-tap of a winter virus. There's only so much spirit-lifting a gathering of neighbours can be expected to do. For everything else, there's Ben and his party games. Christmas Swingball, anyone?

Sadly, our sole visit to the Brockman household this year suggests that the inevitable has finally happened: the young actors who play Ben and Karen are now too mature and self-aware for the comedy to work. Ben is alarmingly deep-voiced and large, and Karen - once the linch-pin of the show - has hardly any screen time at all. It's as if writers Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin have realised she no longer works as a character. If you remove the eccentric charm of Ben and Karen from the equation, then Outnumbered doesn't have any reason to exist. I suspect the fifth series next year will be the last.

Mark Heap interview

Mark Heap talks about his guest appearance in the Outnumbered Christmas special.

Can Outnumbered go on now its child stars are so big?

The Brockman family are back with another chaotic Christmas special. But now that 'children' Jake, Ben and Karen have all reached double figures, will the show be as funny?

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.

My secret life: Daniel Roche, 12, actor

'Kids my age think they should rebel'.

Frank Lampard in Outnumbered Sport Relief sketch

Outnumbered's Brockman family are back causing chaos - this time with Dancing On Ice host Christine Bleakley and fiancé Frank Lampard.

OK. It's 8.30. That's Christmas over." It was a dream of sorts, uttered by a woman who knew she was at the sharp end of the wrapping-paper-clearance, greasy-pots end of the annual celebration and, just in case you were wondering, it was half past eight in the morning, as Sue from Outnumbered began the familiar cat-drive involved in getting the family to the airport on time.

This year, she had vowed, it was going to be different. They were going away for a short break in the Canaries after a stressful few months that had included bedding infestation and over-reaction by the social services. This being Outnumbered, of course, several towering hurdles stood between that consummation and the chaotic starting line of Christmas breakfast. For the moment, nobody is going anywhere. Ben is a little disappointed with the contents of The Dangerous Book for Boys ("There's nothing about firework shoes in here. Look. 'Grinding an Italic Nib'. What's dangerous about that?") Karen, the six-year old, is in the bathroom shaving (for some reason not explained) and Sue herself is fretting about whether to leave Grandad in hospital over the festive season. "We need a break from Mum needing a break," pleaded Jake meaningfully when cancellation was mooted.

It must be a little wearing maintaining this level of anxiety and there are some signs that Outnumbered is feeling its age. This is partly because the children themselves are growing up but can't entirely be allowed to do so if the comic balance is to be maintained (if only they were drawn like Bart and Lisa). In fact, now and then, there's a sense that they've become caricatures of themselves, straining for effects that seemed entirely fresh in the first series. Characters in a comedy can't really learn, of course, but the underlying naturalism of Outnumbered (its implicit promise that parenthood really is like this) also results in an odd strain between laughter and credulity. Wouldn't they have packed the night before, you find yourself asking, and perhaps dropped in on Grandad on the way to the airport when everything was sorted? Are they being clueless by design? The answer to the last question is "Yes, idiot, they're made-up", but that isn't what you want to be thinking about in a comedy.

It's still funnier than any other family sitcom, as good at sight gags (Ben marching purposefully past the window with a pickaxe at one point) as it is with dialogue. "Oh, look... there's the Queen doing her Christmas thing," said Grandpa brightly, watching the television in his hospital room. "No, Grandad," replied Jake patiently, "that's John Simpson." And though I don't buy for a second that parents this scarred would have let Ben make the sandwiches for the car journey unsupervised (he offers a choice of treacle and mayonnaise or chocolate and stilton bap), they essentially earned the moment of uplift with which all Christmas programmes are obliged to end - in this case, a family sing-song round Grandad's hospital bed.