Outnumbered

I just have to share the rising excitement I'm feeling about the new BBC series of Outnumbered which is due to be aired this Autumn. Sadly the first series was scheduled in such a bizarre way that far too many people were wholly unaware of its existence. For some reason the half hour programme was shown after the 10 o'clock news on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of one week and then the same nights the following week. It was a short series with just 6 parts, meaning that if you were not made aware of it in the first day or two, you missed the entire series, and believe me, you missed out. Here is a very brief summary for you, slightly paraphrased but mostly taken from the BBC Press Office Website:

"Outnumbered is a new comedy written by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin (Drop The Dead Donkey) about the daily rollercoaster of 'family life'....... Starring Claire Skinner (Sense and Sensibility) and Hugh Dennis (Mock The Week) and containing strong elements of improvisation, this comedy portrays raw family chaos in a way that you will not have seen before on TV."

As far as Vianney and I are concerned, the children are the key to the comedy. The BBC descriptions of these characters are:

"A regal five-year-old girl with a talent for interrogation and an interest in nits, a seven-year-old boy with a penchant for lying and an 11-year-old who is gearing up for his scary first day at secondary school."

When we first watched it last year, we could not work out how children could possibly act so well, and come across so real. It turns out that Outnumbered is only loosely scripted, and so that realism that we sensed was actually because the children were mostly improvising. They were given a rough storyline that they had to play along to, but the lines themselves - in particular the lines which had us practically falling off our sofa laughing - usually came off the top of the children's heads. This then gave way to the most entertaining facial expressions on the adult actors as they clearly had no idea what was coming, therefore making their reactions utterly genuine - and priceless.

There is no question about it, the youngest child, Karen, is the absolute star of the show and we cannot wait now for the second series due to hit our screens anytime now. Here are just a handful of clips for you to hopefully see what I'm talking about!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyq6XTkGPPI - Karen determined she is going to leave home. She's "serious"!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG7bWzWYEWg - Dad having to convince the kids that no one will burgle them, not even pixies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSP3ycPHTtE&feature=related - And finally, Karen doing a very good impression of the X Factor Judges....oh and Andrew Lloyd Webber!!