From Till Death Us Do Part to The Royle Family, family life in all its wonderful and woeful iterations has proved fertile ground for the British television sitcom. Few, however, have been as innovative as BBC One’s Outnumbered, which subverted conventions and moved the genre on.

In 1990, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, both experienced topical sketch writers, had shown off their sitcom chops by giving Channel 4 one of its comedy hits in the hilarious, fast-paced newsroom caper Drop the Dead Donkey. Seventeen years later, the pair struck sitcom gold again.

Outnumbered was launched as a six-episode series in 2007, inspired in part by the writers’ experience at the sharp end of family life. The pair went on to write and direct all five series. The show appeared to come from another world to Drop the Dead Donkey, although both were made by comedy powerhouse Hat Trick Productions.

Set in the leafy, middle-class, west London neighbourhood of Chiswick, this naturalistic, part-improvised show is an exceptionally well-observed slice of contemporary family life that quickly gets under our skins. The feel is of a real-time, fly-on-the-wall documentary as we seem to eavesdrop on private conversations.

Bryan Appleyard, in a 2008 Times review, called it “the best British sitcom in years and among the best ever”. The following year, it won the Royal Television Society Award for Scripted Comedy. Other accolades soon piled up.

Apart from the title and end credits, there is no music or laughter track. By sitcom standards, not a lot happens as the fortysomething Brockman parents struggle to keep their heads above water while their three children run rings around them.

Chaos and clutter are everywhere chez Brockman, where Pete (Hugh Dennis) and Sue (Claire Skinner) are very much outnumbered by spiky teenager Jake (Tyger Drew- Honey), raucous middle child Ben (Daniel Roche) and precocious, super- smart Karen (Ramona Marquez). 

It has frequently been said that it is the children’s improvised lines and charisma that set this show apart from other sitcoms that died an early and often merciful death. For my money, as wonderful as the kids are – and Marquez’s surreal flights of fancy are joyous to behold – this view underestimates Dennis and Skinner’s wholly convincing performances as long-suffering, exasperated but loving parents.

They are onscreen much of the time, and it’s hard to take your eyes off them as their expressions speak volumes on how demanding parenting can be. And the dynamic between Dennis and Drew-Honey, as they explore that difficult father and adolescent son relationship, is exquisite to watch. Jake pushes and pushes Pete, an exhausted history teacher who works at a challenging inner-city comprehensive. Yet Pete rarely loses his cool, despite everything life throws at him.

There is a refreshing lack of sentimentality. Outnumbered has never shied away from confronting life’s dark side head-on. There were complaints about the recent Christmas special, which showed Pete – eight years on from the last time we saw the Brockmans – figuring out how to tell his now grown-up children of his prostate cancer diagnosis. This was said by some to be inappropriate subject matter for festive TV, but even in the early days of Outnumbered, you will find tricky subjects. We hear, for example, that Pete’s parents’ relationship is breaking down and observe the difficulty he has in communicating with his well-meaning mother.

Outnumbered isn’t laugh-out-loud, gag-laden comedy. Neither is it Larry David cringe-style humour in which one performer dominates. As the short, cold days drag on, it provides a pick- me-up in the shape of a slow-burning winter warmer, full of heart.

It hasn’t dated, and its wry meditations on family life remain as relevant today as they were when they were newly minted.