T.W.
Sunday 1st November 2009 2:30pm [Edited]
15,786 posts
I think the new series just shows how important Chris Langham was to the show and how much is lost without him. (I felt this during the "specials" as well to a degree, but due to their plots they managed to get away without him more easily.) His performance really encapsulated the absolute ennui of the middle-aged man who's desperate to survive in a job he pretty much hates. The little looks and little lines that Hugh came out with whilst chaos reigned around him were so priceless and added richness to the show as a whole.
I adore Rebecca Front, but for the show's dynamics, Hugh worked perfectly. It is rather just 'Malcolm Tucker's Half-Hour' now. Previously, a scene where Malcolm turned up seemed like the icing on the cake, whereas now I find myself waiting for them. For example, the scene at the Guardian would have worked without Tucker in Hugh's day, but here they obviously felt the need to bring him into it. Glenn, Terri and Ollie's characters have not benefited from the new dynamic either.
Perhaps they shouldn't have started this series with Rebecca Front's character's first days in the job. Just have relied on the audience to get the idea of a personnel change and launched straight into ongoing, everyday madness. This was how they first introduced us to Hugh, the audience getting the character's situation by the end of the first episode. Harder to do in a third series, but may have been a more successful way to get the wheels moving.
I accept the producers' hands were tied when it came to dumping Chris Langham, but I really can't see the show ever working as well without him. It will have good lines, funny stuff, but it used to be more than the sum of its parts. The programme doesn't have that real sense of tragedy about it, which used to make it so cutting and hilarious.
For me, the line that sums up what made The Thick Of It so funny, sad and painful (all at the same time) comes in the first series. Hugh, Ollie and Glenn are on their way to a school visit and, because they can't announce the policy they were intending to (blocked by Tucker), they have to come up with something to say on their way there. So there they are, all sitting in the back of a car, Hugh squashed in the middle, travelling down a faceless, grey A-road. Eventually...
HUGH: What about zoos? My kids went to a zoo, said it was f**king disgusting. What about... "clean up zoos"? (Silence. Beat.) That's shit, isn't it?