Outnumbered

Outnumbered: the British sitcom grows up

Outnumbered, on BBC1, is an era-defining comedy - and its genius lies in letting its child stars speak for themselves.

Outnumbered: the British sitcom grows up

Outnumbered, on BBC1, is an era-defining comedy - and its genius lies in letting its child stars speak for themselves.

You could argue that Outnumbered ploughs a familiar comic furrow. It is, after all, about besieged middle-class parents dealing with three children, and it has antecedents that stretch all the way from Joyce Grenfell to My Family. But familiarity is irrelevant when the scripts - written by the Drop the Dead Donkey team, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin - are as acutely observed and as funny as this. The absence of a laughter track frees it from the straitjacket of gags, allowing it to veer off into unexpected directions. And best of all, there are the performances by the young actors. If you haven't seen them yet, you're missing something remarkable.

Everything you need to know about Outnumbered

The Independent provides a guide to the show.

Perhaps the best show on the box at the moment, and if you're not watching, then shame on you! Outnumbered is sublime and familiar and laugh out loud funny as Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis attempt to keep their boisterous brood under control. Hugh Dennis is just brilliant, which is a surprise as he's probably best known to a wider audience (outside Radio 4) as a low rent secondary character in My Hero (shudder).

Precocious children are generally funny for about five minutes or so and then you just want them to shut up and go away. So in that sense, child-centric sitcom Outnumbered was a fair reflection on its chosen subject. It was a perfect illustration of the nightmare caused by muddle-headed middle-class parents attempting rational debate with scheming brats.

But as Mum and Dad (sharp performances from Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis) allowed their trio of objectionable offspring to run rings round them without any payback, the effect was aggravating. Crazy child Ben's funny opening about whether it's ever OK to hit anyone first ultimately backfired - by the end, pretty much everyone on Outnumbered, parents and children, could have done with a slap.

No room to properly do justice to the brilliance of Outnumbered, which has deservedly been promoted to a prime Saturday slot. But I would like to share the theological conundrums a hapless vicar found himself faced with after unwisely crouching down to talk to a group of children at a wedding: 'Why has God only given us 15 thousand billion years left to live before the sun dies?' and, trickier still perhaps, 'What would Jesus do if he was attacked by a polar bear?'

This delightfully frenetic family comedy returns as the Brockmans attend a wedding where all hell perpetually threatens to break loose. Parents Pete and Sue attempt to keep their offspring - surely the best child actors on TV - under control, but in this sitcom, as in life, they're always at least one step behind.

This is some sort of a miracle. Sitcoms are usually a form of hell on earth, in which the viewer feels as though he or she is being torn apart by a pack of brain-dead hyenas.

But incredibly, there are now two sitcoms being shown, both from the BBC, that are gloriously funny - Outnumbered and Lead Balloon. They share many qualities. Both are based loosely around the travails of family life, both are sharply observed and brilliantly cast, both are understated and neither has a laughter track.

But what makes the returning series of Outnumbered so special, above and beyond all those other estimable qualities, is the acting of the three children involved. They are the most natural comic performances from children that I have ever seen.

Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin Interview

A short Q&A interview with the writers of the show conducted during the build up to the second series.