U.K. 'Outnumbered' by new laughs

BBC comedy uses partly improvised script

By STEVE CLARKE

LONDON -- Following "The Office" and "Gavin and Stacey," the BBC may have another hit laffer on its hands with "Outnumbered," a meticulously observed, downbeat comedy focusing on middle-class, cash-strapped, contemporary family life in suburban London.

Its title refers to the fact that mom and dad are overmatched by their three demanding kids.

Nothing especially original in that, but where this show parts company with the sitcom form is in its partly improvised script, which gives the program a Mike Leigh-style authenticity.

"Outnumbered" is produced and directed by its creators, TV comedy writers Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, and made by Hat Trick.

Stateside, it impressed Fox sufficiently to make a pilot version of the show, written by Larry Levin.

The Brit version features Pete and Sue Brockman (Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner) and their brats -- Karen (Ramona Marquez), age 6, Ben (Daniel Roche), age 8, and 12-year-old Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey).

The other member of the household is Granddad (David Ryall), given temporary refuge at chez Brockman after he accidentally torched his own house following an incident involving a can of baked beans and a microwave oven. He's also suffering from the early symptoms of Alzheimer's.

Sitcoms involving family life have long been a smallscreen staple.

But few, if any, have been brave enough to tackle their subject matter docu-style, minus music or laugh track -- and with the kids' lines unscripted.

"We write the storyline and we write the dialogue, but we try to create an environment where the kids will spin off into something or they'll express themselves in a way that's very individual to them," Hamilton explains. "In most cases, the adults don't get any real warning, and then we step into genuine improvisation."

This creates deeply compelling TV where the perfs of the children, who are not professionally trained, are remarkably credible -- especially young Marquez's deceptively knowing asides.

"The supreme irony of this whole experience is that, for the past 30 years, Guy and I have been driving actors to the brink of nervous breakdowns by insisting they honor every sacred word and comma of our scripts," Hamilton says. "But now, on 'Outnumbered,' we sometimes film entire scenes with only the vaguest idea of what might be said. Maybe that is the real secret of working with kids: Just set them loose."

Establishing a new sitcom, especially one as original as "Outnumbered," is no easy task.

The first season was stripped in a post-10 p.m. slot over two weeks during the late summer of 2007 on the BBC's flagship web BBC1.

"It kept us out of the ratings bunfight of primetime," Hamilton says.

The second season, which bowed last month, is screening on BBC1 at the more exposed time of 9 p.m. on Saturday evenings, where it's holding its own. The most recent episode, competing head-to-head with the hugely popular "X Factor Results Show," achieved a 17.1% share (4 million viewers).

"We had a long debate over whether to put 'Outnumbered' on a mainstream channel like BBC1. As it was a show about the chaos of family life, we decided it was worth the experiment," recalls Lucy Lumsden, BBC controller of comedy commissioning.

"It's paid off because the show has broken through -- a lot of it due to word of mouth," she adds. "Essentially it's a family comedy. I am encouraged to see that our definition of what constitutes a mainstream show is changing. It is wonderful that we can put something as bold as this on BBC1 and not be criticized for it."