Ben from Outnumbered officially approves Dover Castle

Interview with KCL alumni and Outnumbered star, Daniel Roche.

3 months ago

It doesn’t matter how old you are, everyone has at least heard of Outnumbered and knows the icons who made the show, notably Ben, played by Daniel Roche.

What you may not know is that the Outnumbered star King’s College London to study BA history from 2018 to 2021 and also for MA international conflict from 2023 to 2024. The 24-year-old told The King’s Tab all about his time at KCL.

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Wondering what attracted him to KCL over other prestigious unis in London, we asked Daniel why he chose King’s. Explaining that he originally went to a school affiliated with UCL, he explained how he was ready for change.

Daniel told The Tab: “Well, I’m from London, but my dad is Irish so when I finished school my parents sold their house and moved back to Ireland, but I wanted to stay as I’ve lived here my whole life. I’m from North London originally and went to the school that UCL is affiliated with, so all within that same area. I wanted something different and more central, to live right in the middle of it all and King’s really allowed that.”

He added: “Plus, King’s had the War Studies department and the whole community that exists between it and the history department, the amount of research that goes on there, I was definitely attracted to all of that – it looked like a good place for what I wanted to do.”

We asked whether he’d lived in halls during his first year, Daniel said: “No, I screwed up. I came off clearing from Cambridge, and even though I always knew King’s was going to be the plan.

“I ended up living in that South Camden area where a lot of UCL students are. But I didn’t live with students, instead I lived with a random Albanian family for a year.”

Daniel also played for King’s rugby team, we asked him about his best memories, he said: “We won our Macadam Cup, which we didn’t actually have Varsity for most of my years playing-

“But the best memory I had at King’s, without a doubt, was when we won the Macadam at the end of my second-year season, which during my time at King’s wasn’t really being done. We were the first King’s team in ages not to get relegated, and the university actually called the COVID lockdown the very next day!”

The Tab asked Daniel for what bars he’d recommend to a King’s student: “Dover Castle, honestly. I don’t know if it’s quite as popular as it was then as I haven’t really been during my masters, but I’d say Dover.

Daniel added: “Other than that, pick for price. Always go for price, because at the end of the day the vibes at more expensive places aren’t always that great. Dover is cheap, and that’s why there is a vibe there! But other than that, y’know just go to the Spoons, do Cock Tavern in Euston, go to Simmons, and go wherever locals go!”

We asked if he had any favourite modules that he took during undergrad or any he specifically disliked: “I disliked the compulsory ones. I understand their use in terms of building skills for research and writing but it’s just boring.

“I remember I had to write an 800-word essay about one singular source which was effectively just 15 dense pages of economist jargon, all about a company that was something along the lines of being an economic base of the British Empire.

“That was without a doubt the most boring thing I’ve ever had to confront.

“Other than that, I really liked the rest of my modules. I’m a neeky guy, I like what I study and that’s why I did subjects like history and international conflict – I’m interested in everything I look at.“

We asked if being recognised had more of a positive or negative impact on his experience at university, Daniel told the Tab: “Barely a thing at King’s, but it’s complicated. “I mean, I compare it to school. There, people get over it more, and at King’s because it is so big you don’t see anybody nearly as frequently which made it harder to break past them seeing me as just ‘the kid from Outnumbered’.

“While being recognised doesn’t bother me because of how long I’ve had it, King’s is one of the few places that it hasn’t really been much of an issue just because of how international it is.

“Most international students have no idea about the show. I know a few people, even during my Masters, where they’ve only recently clocked who I am.

“Whereas, when I stay and visit my mates anywhere like Leeds or Manchester, it really is constant. At King’s it’s a lot less frequent, the only issue was that it was so large that when people did know, it was hard to move past that.”

The Tab asked Daniel what drove him to pursue a Masters degree, he told us: “Interest. I had just finished my undergraduate at King’s, and I was working manual labour just to get some money while I was figuring out what I was doing. While working these jobs I was always still listening to history podcasts, geopolitical analysis, current affairs, all of it consistently and somewhat being more informed on things than I was at university.

“I just realised after a while; I realised I needed to do something about this.

“This came to me at 7am on a Thursday morning as I rocked up to a manual labour shift that I learned was not actually scheduled for that day. Stood in Leicester Square, furious because it was so early and I had gotten the days wrong, and I got up the website for the King’s War department, picked a course and sent off my application right then and there.”

We asked him what his research focused on, Daniel told us: “My research focus is on anything to do with the far-right, the transnational far right. I find far-right politics really interesting, the motivations, the characters, the events. What I’m currently doing my MA dissertation on far-right foreign fighters in Russia and Ukraine.”

We asked Daniel whether he preferred studying at undergrad on postgrad to which he replied: “Postgrad for sure. I like the freedom. I like the ability to kind of pick something relevant to my research niche.

“Like, before my Masters I had all of these little topics that I was really interested by and I was trying to consume as much media on them as possible, and because they were all so niche there wasn’t really that much out there.

He added:”Doing my Masters, I can sort of tailor my assignments to those interests and have all the academic resources King’s provides to actually find out everything I wanted to find out about these groups.

So, postgrad, without a doubt. “

It has been announced that Outnumbered is returning this Winter for a Christmas special. The Tab asked Roche what he thinks it will be like returning to the role of Ben: “I think it will be interesting.

“We did a comic relief shorts recently where we watched the old Christmas specials, and in one of them, Ben was a bit older and I made the observation that by this age, him talking how he was still talking to people no longer came off as just a mischievous little kid, and that he was just a bit of a weird teenager really.

“So I definitely think the character over time became more that way because he stayed the same while the age grew, but it’ll be very interesting to see how they manage to put that into an adult character.”

Curious about the development of Ben’s character, we asked Daniel about where the character may be at present and if he still relates to him. Daniel told us:

“You know, they released a press statement or something about the episode coming out which included something about hyenas, also implying that one of the kids has now got a kid – which was news to me! But they didn’t say who, so I guess that leaves it open to whatever. But I am in the dark about the plot as much as anyone else, which is how it always was with the show.

“But yeah, we have a lot of the same traits, but he went very science. He was very sciencey – I’m not at all, I’m terrible at it.

“But I think certain things like curiosity, confidence, things like that I’m still very much there on those fronts. Like if I want to talk to someone about something I’ll just talk about it, which is what I think led to Ben.

“A lot of Ben’s outbursts were motivated by curiosity, more than anything else, and I’ve stayed curious, that’s why I did the master’s, that’s why I’m so neeky with my stuff. I’m just interested to know. “

Wondering about what will come next in his journey, The Tab asked Daniel what’s next for him now that he has graduated from King’s. He explained:

“I don’t know really.

“I’m currently working on a zero-hour contract for the Cabinet Office but I’m still in the training phase of that. Then again, it’s a zero-hour contract job so it’s not really a ‘future’, it’s just a money-maker for the minute.

“My agent retired during COVID, while I was at King’s. I had my dissertation and everything vaguely on the horizon, so for various different reasons since I have put off getting a new one over the years, but it is what I am looking at doing at the minute.

“I’ll keep acting open as a possibility because if you can make that career work, it’s a good life.

“Other than that, it would have to be something that pertains to those interests. Something to do with analysis or journalism maybe, stuff that fits the neekiness, yano? “

Daniel also answered our most pressing question, what is the ugliest King’s building? To which he answered: “I’m not gonna include Denmark Hill, barely ever there and I couldn’t really tell you what it looks like.

“So for me, it’s got to be between the really brutalist front of the Strand building, or Waterloo. I think Waterloo is just clinching it because the King’s one has quite an ugly front, but you go in, and it’s lovely.

“Waterloo stays dead. It’s just entirely not very nice.

“Plus, I have horrible memories of COVID, because they didn’t have the libraries open, but those buildings stayed open. I’d work in the cafeteria area of that building doing all-nighters during lockdown, and it is such a uniquely horrible building to be doing that in. “

Featured images via @bouwulf on Instagram.