Outnumbered cast on their Christmas reunion: "I started crying when I got the email"

In fact, our shoot is the first time they have all been together in years – although that doesn’t stop the “kids” casually referring to their on-screen parents Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis as “Mum” and “Dad” in conversation.

It feels apt for the Brockmans to be leaving everything to the last minute. Over five series of the BBC sitcom (plus specials) from 2007 to 2016, viewers fell in love with the ordinary yet chaotic family – and the three young actors, who were kept off-script so they could deliver more authentic performances.

When the shoot for the original family photograph (below) took place in 2008, Ramona Marquez was six, Daniel Roche was eight and Tyger Drew-Honey was 13. Reading the accompanying interview now, however, Drew-Honey is baffled. “It says I’d like to be an actor, but if it doesn’t pan out, then I’ll probably do a degree in criminology and join the police force,” he mutters, as his on-screen siblings and parents laugh. “But I can’t remember a time when I ever wanted to do any of that!”

With all three “kids” now in their 20s, their characters, Karen, Ben and Jake, have likewise grown up and moved out. “Pete and Sue have downsized and are finally living a peaceful life – but in reality they miss the kids,” explains Skinner, now 58. “And they are also – marvellously – grandparents!”

“It's a classic.... ‘Christmas not actually on Christmas,’ as no-one is around,” says Marquez, explaining the episode is set between December 25th and New Year (when it also airs). “It’s actually what my family did last year for Christmas. And there's some classic Outnumbered chaos.”

“We’re just very keen, as all parents are, to get our kids back for the festive occasion,” adds Dennis, 62. He has two children in real life, as does Skinner, so speaks from experience. “The dynamic changes. You spend your whole life managing your children – and then after a certain age, you’re aware your children are managing you!”

Getting the Brockman family back together for this special episode proved to be surprisingly easy. Ironically, after they stopped playing a couple on TV, Dennis and Skinner have now become a couple in real life. “Claire and I see each other, quite a lot, certainly,” deadpans Dennis, deftly deflecting any questions about his personal life. “Every now and then,” laughs Marquez.

For 28-year-old Drew-Honey, who plays sardonic eldest child Jake, it was an "instantaneous yes".

“I had looked at Outnumbered as this part of my life that had passed – so I started crying when I got the email, because I was that happy,” he says. Marquez and Roche, now 22 and 25, were also keen. Unlike their “big brother”, who has carried on acting, the pair had largely left showbiz behind, but both are now hoping to get back in the game.

“I was a big teenager, and there wasn’t much work coming through for that,” admits Roche, who instead focused on rugby, playing for King’s College London while he was a student there.

“It’s been nice to get back into it,” Marquez adds. “I took a long break from acting when I was doing my A levels and uni and stuff like that, and then only really started to get back into it last year.

“It’s also nice to have that time to explore other things and then have it be a choice, rather than it being something I’ve always done – since I was five!”

Unlike many child stars, the Outnumbered kids seem pretty well-adjusted. Roche says his fame sometimes made him a target on the rugby pitch – “but I can handle that. I’m game,” he grins, confidently – while Marquez has mostly had to avoid being mobbed at music festivals, where people couldn’t believe that the cute, pint-sized Karen had grown into an adult.

“In high school there were a few people who, you know, tried to make me feel like I was really arrogant or take the mickey a bit,” says Drew-Honey. “But it was never really that deep, and ultimately it didn't really affect me.”

It probably helped that all three kids went through the experience together, and have stayed in touch over the decades, meeting up once or twice a year. Drew-Honey and Skinner have also worked together since – ironically, playing a mother and son in an animated project – while Dennis has bumped into one or two of his on-screen offspring at events.

“In a rather paternal way, I have sort of kept an eye on what they’re doing,” he says. “You do feel strangely father-like.”

Though Skinner insists that doesn’t extend to giving parental acting tips. “They're all their own people, and they're all really good actors,” she says. “Just no, wouldn't dream of doing that. And in fact, even when they were little, we never really told them how to act.”

The kids, sometimes, might have welcomed it. “I don't like going back and watching myself too much,” says Roche. “It kind of bugged me out a bit. I think it comes probably from that awkward pre-teen stage where you're a little bit awkward in yourself anyway, and then the last thing you want to do is watch yourself even younger.

“But I think this shoot in particular has probably driven me to go back and finally rewatch some of that stuff.”

“You can watch some of the Christmas ones at Christmas!” suggests Marquez.

“What's lovely about doing this special actually,” adds Dennis, “is that originally we only worked together half the time, because they could only work for 45 minutes and then four hours in a day. So Claire and I would be doing our lines to no one at all, or possibly to [series creators] Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, who had drawn sets of eyes on gaffer tape fixed to their jumpers at the correct height.

"Now, we are actually talking to Ben, Karen and Jake!”

“And now you’re grown up – you are you, now, aren’t you?” he adds looking at the “kids”, with a touch of emotion. “It is fantastic to watch, and has made me hope we might do more... but perhaps we should quit while we’re ahead. And anyway, I’m giving up acting.”

The others stop talking, surprised. “Because I’ve decided to do a degree in criminology.”

The kids groan and laugh, and start talking between themselves, interview forgotten.

Squint, and it almost looks like a family photo.

A condensed version of this article appears in the Christmas double issue of Radio Times

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The Outnumbered Christmas special will air on BBC One and iPlayer on Thursday 26th December at 9:40pm.

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