Tyger Drew-Honey Takes on Porn, BBC3, TV review: Outnumbered star talks sex and masturbation

Teenage actor's documentary made for an uncomfortable watch

Tyger Drew-Honey, the 18-year-old actor played eldest son Jake in 'Outnumbered' (BBC)

BBC3's 9pm offering last night was a troubling watch. Tyger Takes on Porn was the first in the three-part Tyger Takes On... documentary series fronted by Tyger Drew-Honey, the 18-year-old actor who played eldest son Jake in BBC1's hugely popular, long-running sitcom Outnumbered.

We've known him since he was 11, so watching Jake – sorry, Tyger – speak matter of factly about his porn consumption, masturbation habits and sex life felt almost as uncomfortable as watching your own son or little brother do the same. Drew-Honey and his contributors would probably argue that we all just need to relax and talk more openly, but haven't we been talking about porn rather a lot lately?

Only last month, erstwhile T4 presenter Jameela Jamil fronted Porn: What's the Harm?, also on BBC3, and scenes from Channel 4's documentaries Porn on the Brain and Date My Porn Star haunt us still. What's the point of yet another re-tread?

Well, Drew-Honey did have an unusual angle on the topic. As the son of Ben Dover, the UK porn star and producer of such home-grown "classics" as Only Fools and Arses and Sex and the Settee, he grew up with a blasé attitude to the family business. Yet, you'll note, not quite blasé enough to interview adult film actress Brooklyn Blue without stammering. In fact, in the company of any interviewee with real insights – such as MakeLoveNotPorn campaigner Cindy Gallop, or the woman whose boyfriend had developed an interest in rape porn, he seemed woefully out of his depth.

Perhaps that's as it should be. Tyger/Jake's residual innocence, was both the most comforting and the most telling part of his documentary debut, especially since it seemed to come as a shock even to him: "There's like this whole, other dark world of porn and its really scary," he said to camera after one interview. "I really have been scared by it today."