“I just want Christmas to be perfect, you know, what with everything,” Sue Brockman (Claire Skinner) tells husband Pete (Hugh Dennis) a few minutes into the new Outnumbered Christmas special. After years of threatening it, the Brockmans have moved to a smaller house, and gone to great lengths to get their three children in one place for Christmas dinner. The pressure’s high – they’ve got some ominous news to share.
Outnumbered began in 2007, and it’s been eight years since the last special. The three Brockman children are now all in their 20s, working, travelling and even, in the case of Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey), raising a child. Feel old yet?
From its debut, Outnumbered aimed to portray family life, particularly the quirks of young children, in the most authentic way possible. Its main innovation was improvisation, the kids given prompts rather than lines to inform their responses to the adults’ scripted lines. It created many natural moments of sweetness and humour between the on-screen family members. Andy Hamilton, who created the show with Drop the Dead Donkey colleague Guy Jenkins, said the goal was to avoid having children robotically reciting their parts while standing still.
Tyger Drew-Honey as Jake, Kerena Jagpal as Rani, Daniel Roche as Ben and Ramona Marquez as Karen (Photo: Adam Lawrence/BBC/Hat Trick Productions)That petered out as the cast got older, so the final series and specials resembled a more traditional sitcom. That’s the case with this year’s Christmas special too, but the introduction of Zara, Jake’s boisterous three-year-old, gives moments of that original naturalism. In one of the sweetest scenes, Dennis gamely crawls around pretending to be a hyena with his granddaughter. “Maybe it’s time to stop being a hyena now?” he begs. “No, not yet,” she grins.
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Read MoreWe learn a little about each child’s adult life. Karen (Ramona Marquez) complains about her incompetent colleagues, her ex-girlfriend, and even her name – the connotations of “Karen” now too close to the bone. “I’m sorry, we meant to teleport into the future to check on that when we christened you,” Pete responds sarcastically.
Jake is exhausted from parenting while working from home as an IT consultant and trying to maintain his relationship with Zara’s mum Rani (Kerena Jagpal). Their troubles allow Pete and Sue to step in with parental advice, recalling their own fights fuelled by sleep deprivation, including an incident involving a mallet.
Ben, meanwhile, is planning a trip to the Andes, after the pandemic prevented him from taking a gap year. He spends half the episode trapped on rail replacement buses and a secret Santa mix-up hints at his old chaos, but elsewhere he shows a new maturity as he tries to support his parents.
Hugh Dennis as Dad and Daniel Roche as Ben (Photo: Adam Lawrence/BBC/Hat Trick Productions)The episode is propelled by the ominous news, and Pete and Sue’s worries over how their kids will react to it. And it really is big: Pete has prostate cancer.
But the drama isn’t overblown, and the special doesn’t dwell on what could happen next. Instead, it focuses on the family’s bonds. There’s something of a role reversal, as the kids work out how to reassure their parents – for once, being outnumbered might not be a bad thing. They share concerns that Pete’s cracking jokes to cover his fear, while Karen offers pointed exposition on Sue’s state of mind: “Mum’s obsessing over this whole perfect Christmas thing so she doesn’t have to mentally process dad’s diagnosis.” Can they all face the crisis together?
The Outnumbered Christmas special is gentle, nostalgic, and captures something real about familial relationships and the ways they can turn the mundane into magic. As Pete says in a toast to his family: “Here’s to good old underappreciated everyday life.”
‘Outnumbered’ is streaming on BBC iPlayer
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