Armando Iannucci

I was surprised to see the new series of Harry & Paul (Sunday, BBC Two) being aired at 10pm on a Sunday. Surely its natural home is a Friday evening, before or after Have I Got News for You? But after a moment's reflection, I appreciated what was going on. Sunday nights have become the most important ratings battlefield, with those who want something serious watching either Homeland on Channel 4 or Andrew Marr's History of the World on BBC One. Those who want cheering up with a bit of comedy head off for Downton Abbey on ITV1 - but where do they go for their laughs after that? ITV1 and BBC One head straight into the news. Channel 4 goes into comedy with the not very funny Friday Night Dinner. That leaves BBC Two.

The question is, are Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse still funny? Yes mostly, is the short answer, though their sketches are uneven. There were some old favourites included in the first episode, such as the intelligent and very posh surgeons, as well as the reactionary duffers in their gentleman's club discussing who in public life is and isn't "queer" (it was Michael Gove's turn in this one). These were unapologetic and well executed both.

But of the new material, some, such as a sketch involving two Irish-American cops in a bar, needed to be run through the typewriter again. While others, such as a black and white Strangers on a Train sketch, I felt I had seen before, Fifties parodies being their stock in trade. A sketch in which a posh racehorse trainer was talking in an unintelligible way to an Irish jockey, meanwhile, had shades of the Ted and Ralph sketches from The Fast Show. But that one can be forgiven if only because they managed to smuggle the "c" word into the stream of impenetrable verbiage in such a way that you were not sure you had really heard it. The most enjoyable of the new sketches was a subtitled parody of The Killing, which then bled into other sketches.

Their satire works best when their targets are generic and broad rather than specific. Their parodies of Question Time and Dragons' Den in this new series, for example, felt too in-jokey, like an office Christmas review in which you send up the bosses. The former would have worked just as well if the chairman wasn't supposed to be David Dimbleby.

The moronic questioner - "If the bankers, the bonuses, the bankers, the bonuses" - was spot on, however, though it didn't need David Dimbleby to spell out that he was a moron. "Man in the green jumper, do you have a clichéd thought for us?"

But the satire of Harry & Paul was never intended to be as sophisticated as that of Armando Iannucci, and there is room for both.

Getting On is a minor masterpiece of a hospital comedy that truly deserves a wider audience.

This week, the staff were grappling with a green initiative cascading down from on high but it was Sister Den's story that caused cardiac arrest as she struggled with her pregnancy.

Joanna Scanlan, who also plays the 'blockage' known as Terri in Armando Iannucci's top-drawer political satire The Thick Of It, is an unsung heroine of British comedy.

Armando Iannucci's Thick of It bows out with 750,000

The Thick of It's last ever episode drew a fairly modest audience on Saturday night, early data shows.

When a chief whip on a bike is caught behaving out of order, when a prime minister is accidentally heard calling someone a bigot, or when a chancellor of the exchequer is spotted fare-dodging on a train, there is only one thing to say: "It is just like The Thick of It!" we cry.

But with the end last night of the final series of the acclaimed BBC sitcom, an intriguing question remains; how long will the phrase survive in common British parlance? Will it go on to join long-defunct sitcoms such as Grange Hill and Steptoe and Son to become a part of the national psyche?

Signs look good, since the show quickly took over from Yes, Minister, the political sitcom that inspired it, once frequently used to describe the chicanery of civil service mandarins.

Former Observer columnist Armando Iannucci's show represented its era with uncanny accuracy, aping the spineless manoeuvring and ruthless spinning of its targets with little need for caricature.

It is fair then to assume that Malcolm Tucker will live on at least as long as naughty Tucker from Grange Hill.

Armando Iannucci: Ending will leave you wanting more

Armando Iannucci has promised The Thick Of It fans that the final ever series of the political satire will leave them craving more - and he's even hinted that there might be more to come.

So farewell then Malcolm Tucker, a prince of darkness for whom the term spin doctor doesn't quite seem sufficient. Spin surgeon general would be a better title. Yes, it's the end of the line for peerless political satire The Thick Of It. The campaign to make Armando Iannucci do a U-turn on that decision starts here.

Though its fourth season has been its least impressive, Armando Iannucci's political satire will none the less go down as one of the best ever British comedies: sharp and cynical. Tonight, after last Saturday's excellent Leveson and Chilcot-inspired special, it finally bows out, with an instalment overflowing with delicious duplicity and inventive insults - not least from Malcom Tucker (the ever-wonderful Peter Capaldi) who gives Ollie Reader (Chris Addison) a hilarious dressing down.

The episode picks up with the Home Office having cut police numbers, which in turn has created a huge backlog of arrest paperwork. Cleverly, however, they've managed to shift the blame onto the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship for the burgeoning queues at police stations. "I doubt there are any major criminals on the loose," says Phil Smith (Will Smith). "This is about paperwork; it's not Con Air." Elsewhere, Dan Miller (Tony Gardner), at Malcolm's suggestion, is sent on a fact-finding mission to a police station in an attempt to make the Government look unresponsive. To say any more about the plot would give too much away, but viewers can expect a climax that is as poignant as it is amusing.

Iannucci accidentally leaked Thick Of It episode

Armando Iannucci has admitted on Twitter that he accidentally linked his followers to a full episode of The Thick of It.

Spectacular and embarrassing U-turn time. At the start of this series of The Thick of It (BBC2, Saturday) I said it had lost its way, and wondered if Armando Iannucci had, what with all his other projects such as conquering America, taken his eye off it. To be fair to me, that first episode was weak.

Since then it has been patchy, with highs and ... not exactly lows, but kind of so-so middle grounds. Nearly all the highs have come when the opposition (Tucker, Murray, Reeder etc) has been under the spotlight.

This one, an hour-long Hutton/Leveson-type inquiry into Mr Tickel's death and practices in politics, all set in one room, is something different. Not just sparkling, but also tense and claustrophobic. I even felt a bit moved, seeing Malcolm Tucker on the ropes for the first time, a fallen despot. And it's so very real - it basically is Leveson, just with characters from TTOI in it. Satire at its very very best, a brilliant piece of television.

Armando Iannucci and his A-Team of writers serve up a surprise this week: a one-off, gift-set edition that's a different beast altogether from what we're used to. In place of the usual sweary farce, we get dry satire, set entirely at hearings for a public inquiry into the death of Douglas Tickell, the health worker whose suicide has dogged DoSAC ministers and flunkies throughout the series.

The exchanges are skilfully done, mocking the etiquette of Leveson-type inquiries, where a quaint legalistic process ("If you would turn to tab 16...") tries to fathom the mad scramble of ministerial politics.

To start with, you may miss the mad scramble and its belly-laughs a bit, but this has great moments. There's Peter Mannion struggling to appear politically correct, Stuart Pearson talking guff ("I believe in government as a transceiver, yeah?") and Malcolm, still cobra-deadly without his usual profanities, and all the more dangerous when he seems to be cornered.

But it's fragile aide Robyn who returns to deliver the damning verdict on her political masters: "To be honest, I think they're just trying to get through the day without cocking up."