Terrible twins top tots TV

They fight, they hate washing and they are more popular than Blue Peter, Grange Hill and Newsround.

After only six months on-air, the BBC's Cramp Twins is the topranking show on children's TV, eclipsing traditional favourites.

The bizarre saga of purple-faced 10-year-old Wayne Cramp and his almost pathological hatred of his mild-mannered brother Lucien may not be every parent's idea of improving viewing, but adults are now catching on.

Latest official ratings reveal the show is the most-watched among four to 15-year-olds with 790,000 viewers per episode, beating the BBC's Story Of Tracy Beaker into second place by 10,000.

Blue Peter comes third with 770,000. ITV's most popular children's programme, the cartoon Mr Bean, is down in eighth with 700,000. The Cramp Twins were created by Richmond-based author Brian Wood, who wrote and illustrated two books about them for publishers Bloomsbury, which became the inspiration for the 30-minute shows.

The action centres on Wayne's main mission in life, to create havoc for bespectacled Lucien. The twins are united only in rebellion against their obsessively clean mother.

The storylines are loosely based on Mr Wood's own childhood persecution by older brother John. He said: "A lot of kids can see themselves in that situation. That may be one reason why its equally popular with boys and girls, which is quite unusual for cartoons."