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.

An odd piece of scheduling for a brilliant comedy. I hope this doesn't turn into another Trevor's World of Sport for co-writer Andy Hamilton, because the second series of this insidiously clever piece of work deserves an audience. Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner return as parents Pete and Sue, constantly trying (and generally failing) to corral their brood of three boisterous children. The beauty is in the fact the kids are rarely working from a script, with a lot of the comedy coming from just letting the child actors get on with it and see what happens. Cracking!

Hugh Dennis Interview

Hugh Dennis answered some Q&A questions in the build up to the second series.

Once the middle classes were obsessed with cars, cats or gardens. These days, it's kids. Car seats? Baby on Board? Is this the nation that produced Stirling Moss?

I expected to hate Outnumbered, but was pleasantly surprised. This family sitcom is deliberately underdone with mundane settings and a loose improvisational style. And the humour is mild and wry rather than savage or out there.

Admittedly, it'd happily watch even Big Brother if Claire Skinner were involved. But Hugh Dennis is nicely lugubrious and the writing (Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton's first collaboration since Drop The Dead Donkey) is typically skilled.

Even the fact that one of the child actors is called Tyger Drew-Honey didn't put me off. Not much, anyway.

There's good news for fans of Outnumbered. The unconventional family sitcom - which uses some improvisation - will be returning for a second series on BBC One at the end of September.

Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner work well together as the hard-pressed parents of three small children. The kids themselves - Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey), Ben (Daniel Roche) and Karen (Ramona Marquez) - are terrific.

Written by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton (who created Drop the Dead Donkey), the improvisational sections work surprisingly well, especially the off-the-cuff lines delivered by the kids. The lines are so good that at times Dennis and Skinner have to suppress their own wry smiles. In addition, Dennis is a gifted comedian who can also improvise, so it's a winning combination all-round.

The series became quite essential viewing last September, despite the BBC's bizarre idea of stripping it in two bunches of three consecutive episodes across a fortnight. This sort of show works much better with a more conventional regular weekly spot. Let's hope the BBC gets the scheduling right for the new series.

This deliriously enjoyable family sitcom had the funniest scenes ever between grown-ups and small children. Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner shone as the careworn parents but it was the child actors who were a revelation.

Outnumbered came to BBC One with very little fanfare. There were a few adverts, but it was stuck on at 10.35pm after the News, and shown on consecutive nights over two weeks. Which is unusual to say the least, and I've no doubt that some people missed some episodes if they thought it was a weekly programme.

Yes, quiet and unassuming it may have been, but it was gorgeous. Following a middle-class family in the midst of several crises, Outnumbered proved so special because of the actors' improvisation. To be precise, it was the children who improvised around the adult actors' script, and the result was magical. Five year old Ramona Marquez played the youngest child and is a complete genius - you could see that Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner's reactions to some of the more surreal things she came out with were entirely genuine. The other children, played by Tyger Drew-Honey and Daniel Roche, couldn't be quite so off the wall, and therefore probably actually had to work harder, and were both wonderful.

It's not the most earth-shatteringly original set-up, I'll grant you - mum, dad and three kids living the kind of comfortable middle-class London existence that comedy script-writers feel at home with.

But compared to the ridiculous carry-on of My Family, it's much more low-key and realistic. In fact it's so low-key, nothing actually happens, which could well be a nod to Seinfeld - the touchstone of all great sitcoms.

The getting ready for school chaos is like Supernanny: The Movie only with nicer children. It's also taken a leaf out of Curb Your Enthusiasm's book with large chunks of improvisation - although the strongest language you'll find here is 'ponk'.

Ramona Marquez who plays their angelic daughter Karen is adorable and letting the kids make up their own dialogue results in the kind of off-the-wall comedy grown-ups couldn't make up if you paid them.

Weirdly, the BBC have decided to schedule this on consecutive nights with three episodes this week and three episodes next week, so keep an eye out for it.