What We Did On Our Holiday is written and directed by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton, the pair who created the hit BBC sitcom Outnumbered, and this is like an extended episode of Outnumbered minus anything that made it good in the first instance. This is Outnumbered: The Movie (But Crap). Hard to explain, considering Jenkin and Hamilton have more than proved their worth over the years (they also created the brilliant newsroom satire Drop the Dead Donkey) but we all have our off days, I suppose. And our supremely off days. We must put this down to a supremely off day, particularly as it even has one of those forced, saccharine endings where the violins go mad and everyone’s learnt An Important Life Lesson and hugs on a beach. We may even have to put it down to a disastrously off day, in fact.
This stars David Tennant and Rosamund Pike as Doug and Abi, a married couple taking their three children to Scotland to celebrate the 75th birthday of Doug’s father, Gordy (Billy Connolly), but, unlike Sue and Pete from the TV series, they are not decent if rather incompetent parents simply trying to muddle through with their unruly brood. Instead, Doug and Abi are in the midst of a divorce, but ask the kids to keep it secret as they don’t want to upset Gordy, who has terminal cancer. From this first despicable act — effectively forcing their children to lie for them; nice — Abi and Doug grow no more likable, as all they do is bicker, bicker, bicker, only occasionally pausing for a full-blown fight. They bicker, bicker, bicker and fight in the car, all the way from London to the Highlands.
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