It's unofficially been Outnumbered week here at TV Scoop, thanks to our excitement that the second series gets underway this coming Saturday at 9.05pm on BBC One. A couple of days ago, Paul posted his interview with Hugh Dennis, who plays dad Pete, and I've had the chance to speak to the guys who came up with this charming and unique format in the first place - Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin. Pop over the cut to read what they had to say...

Click here for all of our Outnumbered reviews and interviews.

TV Scoop: Our Outnumbered reviews received a massive response on TV Scoop, so it's really great to be able to speak to you both. How quickly did you come to the decision that you could do more with this family for a second series?
Andy Hamilton: The first series, as you know, went out on three consecutive nights one week, and then three consecutive nights the following week. It got a very good critical response, and it got good figures, so the BBC actually decided to recommission it after show four went out.

TVS: Pretty quickly then!
AH: Yeah, it was a very quick decision from the BBC meaning we had to go away and write them right away. hen we filmed during March, April and May.

TVS: Do you know what the scheduling will be like this time, is it the same format as with the first series, or will it be weekly?
Guy Jenkin: It is going to be weekly this time. We've written them slightly differently so that there's not such a strong serial element to them; they're more individual episodes.

TVS: Did you write the first series with the consecutive nights scheduling in mind?
GJ: I think that when it was commissioned, it was always intended to be broadcast like that - we did know from the start, it wasn't a worrying surprise for us!

TVS: You say it's slightly different this time round...
AH: Well it's not very different! There's fewer cliffhanger moments, but apart from that, in style and substance it's very similar. The kids are a bit bigger!

TVS: I was going to ask about that. Kids at that age grow up very quickly, and I was wondering whether there was any worry that they would be a bit more self-conscious this time, having gone through the process before?
AH: You're right, as kids get older they do get more self-conscious. But we tried to create as relaxed an environment as we could, so any initial moments of self-consciousness were pretty quickly forgotten. But it is a quality in very young children that does fade; that spontaneity and lack of inhibitions, so we did have to bear it in mind.
GJ: But when we came to the second series we weren't too worried, because they're very sane and likable kids. We didn't think that once they'd seen themselves on TV they would be different. They got back into the rhythm of it very quickly, so it wasn't really a problem.

TVS: I could imagine that the positive reaction to the first series meant that there was a real buzz about coming back together, is that how it worked out?
AH: It is a very happy show. We all live together - we film it in one house and we live in the next door house! That's where the kids have their tutor and we have our meals and stuff so it's a bit like camping! It's a lovely atmosphere.
GJ: No-one was dragged back kicking and screaming!
AH: But we did have to stop the kids growing any more...

TVS: Ha! Of course. Did any of your working methods change this time?
AH: Well, we learned millions of things from the first series. In essence though, we didn't change that much. There were a few technical things to do with how we recorded the sound and stuff like that, but in essence it was the same.
GJ: I think overall we were just a bit more confident, really, that it would work. We'd done a first series, and done a pilot that had worked very well. Like, this time we have a scene with all three children and no adults, just because we were a bit more confident that it would work.

TVS:You say that there are fewer cliffhanger moments, but are there still plotlines which run through the series?
AH: Yeah, there are. There are three or four plots which run through the series, and at various times one of those plots will come up to the boil. The problem that we saw with the Grandad in the first series - his Alzheimer's - degenerates, just as it does in real life, and there are money problems, which at the time just seemed like a plotline, but now it will feel much more familiar.

TVS: Oh, the credit crunch has to be involved!! That's quite a happy coincidence then, that it has become more pertinent.
AH: Yeah, we didn't actually start the recession just to make the show topical though.

TVS: Well, I did wonder.
GJ: We should say that Auntie Angela is back for one episode, we really wanted to keep her.
AH: One episode is set at a wedding, and is about the impossibility of managing children through the day.

TVS: There was some proper social commentary in the first series, what with Grandad's illness, and political correctness - is there any more of that in the second series?
AH: There are flashes of social commentary, yeah, to do with the pressures on families and parents. Dad gets into different difficulties at school, which are again down to him not quite reading the warning signals enough, in a political sense.
GJ: I think there's also a lot to do with the little things that families agonise about, you know, in an era where bringing up children is meant to be a science, when in fact it's a hit and miss thing that you embark on. There's so much about the industry of how to rear your children. That puts a lot of pressure on parents, and I think that a lot of the small details in the show are about that.

TVS: In your interview with our own Paul last year, you said that while you'd obviously hoped that people would love the show, you were quite surprised at the active response that it received, with people writing into the Radio Times and commenting on TVScoop. Do you have any ideas why that came about?
AH: I think that we assumed that it was just the recognisability of it. Paul very kindly sent us all of the comments, and what we noticed was that everybody recognised something. There was one which was from a boy who said he really liked the scenes between Jake and the dad because they were just like conversations between him and his dad, so it seems it crossed the generations. And it seemed that quite a few of the contributors to your were quite young, and they were always rooting for the kids. So yeah, I think it must have been the recognisable, observational side of it that struck a chord. One of the paper reviews said that it was an honest portrayal of family life that hadn't been seen before, so there was an element of that. We didn't sanitise it, it's quite messy.
GJ: I found it all quite a surprise, and I found it really useful to read all of those comments. It was great to see that it had reached such a wide audience. I think I hadn't imagined that it work for a younger audience but it seems that it did.

TVS: I was thinking about where Outnumbered fits on a comedy map and it's really quite difficult to place. I suppose The Royle Family is a comparison, but did you have any specific precedents or influences when you were writing it?
GJ: It was like... uncharted territory, to take up your metaphor of the comedy map. We just felt that there hadn't been a good comedy about living with young children, probably because of the fear of working with children, the practical problems of their hours et cetera. But we thought it was surmountable. As Andy suggested, we just wanted to do an honest portrayal of family life. When I'm watching TV I like to watch things that aren't quite like anything I've seen, and when we finished it I didn't know whether it would be a success, but I did know that it wasn't like other things on TV.