The best sitcom currently on TV has to be Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's Outnumbered, which succeeds in being both charming and funny in equal measure.

Hugh Dennis and Clare Skinner star as the parents to three young children. That's about it, concept wise, and the plotlines are equally uncluttered. This week the family were delayed at a foreign airport and pass the time by playing games, crashing luggage trolleys, teasing police dogs, terrorising a passenger on crutches and trying to explain to a four year old child why religious fanatics might want to blow their plane up.

Apparently much of the younger cast members' dialogue is semi improvised, which accounts for the stunningly spontaneous performances and some unexpectedly bizarre lines. For the grown ups there is a terrific script to deliver, packed with intelligence, wit, subtlety and imagination. Dennis and Skinner make the most of it, and also manage to generate considerable screen chemistry that holds the whole show together.

Sitcom lets kids improvise

The series has been almost universally praised by the critics, and has even been compared in some quarters to The Simpsons in its portrayal of what Brian Appleyard describes as a 'dysfunctional family redeemed by love'.

Why Outnumbered is so good

You'll recognise that the children involved are startlingly natural and funny in their responses, of course, and that Ramona Marquez as five-year-old Karen effortlessly steals any scene in which she features.

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?'