Contextual Studies- Critical Review

Title: Outnumbered

Date: 2007-Present 

Writer(s):Andy Hamilton Guy Jenkin
Director(s): Andy Hamilton Guy Jenkin

Outnumbered is a BBC television sitcom revolving around the hectic lives of a modern nuclear family. I believe in this family, the children are the ones that seem to take control, having the parents, Sue and Pete Brockman running around worrying about them. Although this is a fictional family ,I cant help but think its a reflection of modern family life. I enjoy this genre and show because it pokes fun at modern life. I watch the Brockman's daily struggle People’s lives change dramatically after having children. Outnumbered is supposed to be a comedy but thinking about it it's deeply depressing. The children seem to hold all the power, and the parent lives revolve around the children. Wrier and director Andy Hamilton believes, it's reassuring to ny parents watching. “We thought we’d celebrate the incompetence of parenthood." So is there a lot of truth portrayed in jest? 

Well, perhaps the reasoning behind its popularity is because it’s so relatable to most nuclear families. It adds humour to a reality. The use of typical everyday problems or arguments is true to life. for example, Pete the father rants at everyone for not turning the lights off when they’ve left a room. Something my own father used to criticise. 

The show is written and directed by the same two people, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin. There is something very unique about their writing style and directorial choices. Unlike manny other programmes today, the majority of scenes are actually improvised. The script will cover the plot, scenes and some dialogue. So the actors would give a situation or topic of debate, and they would talk about this how there characters would. Perhaps it is because of this that the arguments, and answering back of the children is so realistic. After researching more into this I found an interview of Guy and Andy. In it Guy says: "We decided to attempt to do something that hadn't been tried before, bounced some ideas around and we got very keen on this idea of involving improvisation very quickly……It’s a very natural evocation of the daily rollercoaster of family life with all the chaos and all the little details, whereas a programme like My Family, for example, is a studio-based sitcom so has to be more formal.” Having improvisation really worked in their favour. You rarely get the feeling that children in sitcoms are real with their cleche personas. 

In terms of Mise en Scene, a typical episode of Outnumbered will feel very naturalistic. It’s staging is a large London terraced house. This is an ideal setting, and is shot inside and outside a real house. Every episode opens with a house exterior establishing shot for the title sequence. However, I had picked a flaw with this staging. Pete Brockman is a teacher and his wife Sue doesn’t work and for a house of that ilk in London would be expensive, unaffordable to their typical income. Although this is a minor flaw, I imagine its intentional; because the set is integral to the piece, and the most used setting, Guy and Andy wouldn’t make such a stupid error.  

With such a decision, they’ve decided to make the feel of the house as realistic as possible. It’s messy, as a result of having three children, but not cluttered over dramatically, it looks like its lived in by a large family. Most interior scenes are shot in the kitchen; the heart of the house. It’s a communal area with tables, chairs,  and a desk with a computer. Having a computer in the kitchen was well thought out, given most families in Britain have them today (although maybe not as many when the programme was first released). It also meant that scenes that required the computer could also be shot in the kitchen, where a lot of traffic passes through. 

There is clearly an attempt to produce natural lighting, to make scenes seem all the more realistic. So for the morning shouts would be quite bright Scenes shot based in the evening would require more artificial lighting to accompany prop lamps (which don't let off enough light) to give off a warm orange effect.  Costume would simply include working-middle class modern clothing, and school uniform for the children. Clothes are very up to date wth the time they are produced so when the series 5 was released in 2014, chino trousers were in style, so Jake would be seen wearing chinos. It really depends on whats in style when its being filmed, given its present-day setting. 

I’ve noticed with the editing, there is always something going on in the background. Usually this would include sound such as a car alarm going off. Usually, episodes are based on a weekday, so the house is at its busiest in the mornings and evenings. As a result, a scene usually cuts from the morning when everyones left to go to work/school, to the evening when everyone returns. The exception of this is with episodes based on a weekend or special occasion. The editors could chose to have a montage of the gap between morning and evening, but have chosen not to because there would be no real significance. Instead they have a simple fade, and the audience realises time has passed, when all the action stops. 

Modernism is very much touched upon in this programme. It rally shows the changes in the modern family. In this the children take control of the parents and will usually get their own way. Pre 1940, this sort of behaviour was completely unheard of, and parents held a lot more respect and control of the children. Family life was probably a lot more different then after the devastations left from war, and rationing wouldn't have allowed children to get what they wanted whenever they wanted. It shows a modernist nuclear family lifestyle, where family life very much revolves around children and work.

In a sense we have all grown up with the family, regardless of wether you have children or not. When they produced a Christmas special in 2013, it received a lot of criticism because the children had grown up. However, despite this they wrote a new series in 2014, which would receive more  criticism before it had even been aired. This was because the children would’ve grown up and changed, they cant stay young forever. Having such negative press before its released to the public could’ve tarnished the show greatly. However, they made it work well, and the programme didn't lose any credibility it once had. If anything it was even more relatable to those who had grown up watching it. 

References

2016, F.T.L. (2016) Outnumbered filming locations: Find that location. Available at: http://findthatlocation.com/Television-Show/Outnumbered (Accessed: 9 December 2016).

Deacon, M. (2010) Andy Hamilton on the secret to outnumbered’s success. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/7545431/Andy-Hamilton-on-the-secret-to-Outnumbereds-success.html (Accessed: 9 December 2016).

BBC (2007) Press office - outnumbered: Production notes. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/08_august/17/outnumbered_production.shtml (Accessed: 9 December 2016).