Outnumbered

Hugh Dennis on working with the kids of Outnumbered

Hugh Dennis talks about working with the young actors in Outnumbered.

Parents-under-siege sitcom Outnumbered is a slow-burning hit that's steadily accumulated both favourable ratings and gongs (it picked up three British Comedy Awards earlier this month). Rightly so, because it's a rare beast: a comedy that captures the chaos of family life without lapsing into sentimentality. This festive episode, then, is a welcome taster for the third series next spring. It's Boxing Day in the Brockman household and, along with Santa, some burglars have squeezed down the chimney. As usual, precocious, pet-obsessed seven-year-old Karen (the remarkable Ramona Marquez) steals the best scenes - she's not only lost the school hamster under the floorboards, but takes it upon herself to make everybody else's New Year's Resolutions, with typical tact. Meanwhile, brother Ben (mop-topped tyke Daniel Roche) wreaks gleeful havoc with a mechanical hand and eldest Jake (the preposterously named Tyger Drew-Honey) is trying to find Awol grandfather Frank (David Ryall). The increasingly senile old goat couldn't be hiding with the hamster, could he? Parents Pete and Sue (Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner) preside over this pandemonium with beleaguered bafflement.

The young stars of Outnumbered

We meet the brillant young stars of the award-winning comedy series.

Outnumbered captures real life perfectly

'Oh God,' I said to my wife as we lay in bed watching an episode of Outnumbered on BBC1 one Saturday night. 'This is... us!'

In normal years, The Royle Family would be the sitcom special to be most keenly anticipated, but after last Christmas's aberration, "The New Sofa", judgement should be reserved on Caroline Aherne's latest reunion, "The Golden Egg Cup" (Christmas Day, 9pm BBC1). For unalloyed excitement, the 'Outnumbered Christmas Special' has me slathering at the chops. It's Boxing Day, and Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's recognisably modern metropolitan family, the Brockmans, has been burgled - and I don't mean harassed parents Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner getting every scene stolen from under their noses by the improvising child actors, Tyger-Drew Honey, Daniel Roche and Ramona Marquez.

Daddy, I made up the jokes

Suburban sitcom Outnumbered could easily have flopped. Instead its child stars are up against Charlie Brooker for a comedy award.

Your next box set: Outnumbered

Funny, painful and squirmworthy, Outnumbered is a useful guide for new parents.

Thank God for Outnumbered, sitting there like a shining beacon in a fog of tedium on a Saturday night. And the fact it's a repeat makes it all the more amazing. Tonight sees Pete and Sue heading out for dinner, leaving the kids to run rings round the babysitter. It's brilliant, well-observed stuff, and doesn't get tired on repeat viewing.

Why Outnumbered's junior rebel is the ultimate kids' hero

It's just possible that the best cult TV hero for under-10s is a curly-haired kid whose work has never been shown pre-watershed, unless you count an ad for Kingsmill bread. A hugely unscientific survey of children of my acquaintance reveals that those who have seen the BBC comedy series Outnumbered, about a flustered but happy middle-class family, all want to be Ben, the seven-year-old middle son, played by Daniel Roche.

Outnumbered lost out to The IT Crowd at the Baftas this year, which wasn't just baffling it was also a real pity, because Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton's winning portrayal of the minor absurdities of family life, and its brilliant, scene-stealing child actors, deserve proper recognition. In a repeat of series two's first episode, the family, including hapless mum and dad Sue and Pete (Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis), is off to a wedding. As always they hover perilously close to being late as violence-obsessed Ben (Daniel Roche) debates if hitting someone who is attacking you with a shovel would be OK, limpid-eyed Karen (Ramona Marquez) locks herself in the bathroom and Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey) worries. It's achingly funny and packed with lovely moments, including Karen's remorseless quizzing of the increasingly unnerved bride, that always end with the grown-ups being outmanoeuvered.