Armando Iannucci

The Thick of It: the finale

So is this the way Armando Iannucci is going to take his series into the Tory era?

The ailing government is spiralling into the abyss and Malcolm Tucker is both waving and drowning when he tries to charm a group of journalists. Though "charm" is an overstatement: "Journalists...one day you are writing for the papers, the next you are sleeping under them." It's typical Tucker bravado, but you can tell he's feeling insecure. There's a real sense of panic in the penultimate episode of Armando Iannucci's skin-piercing satire. Over at the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, Secretary of State Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) is thrilled to have won the support of tennis ace Andy Murray for a healthy-eating campaign. But the arrival of Steve Fleming (a terrifying David Haig), Malcolm's bete noire and fellow spinner, pitches everyone into chaos. There's something almost frightening about The Thick of It when it's this intense. And when Fleming and Tucker have a titanic, foul-mouthed battle, be afraid.

A superb episode of Armando Iannucci's effortless political satire, as Nicola Murray and her opposition counterpart, Peter Mannion, appear on Richard Bacon's radio show. And the results are, as you'd expect, not pretty. But it's the encounter behind the scenes between Malcolm Tucker and Mannion's own wizard of spin, Stewart Pearson, where the real thrust of this episode lies. It's like the meeting of two powerful Jedi. Or something.

More satirical spin doctoring and creative swearing as Armando Iannucci's political sitcom continues to prowl the corridors of power. It's party conference season, meaning that new Secretary of State Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front, a superb addition to the cast this series) is stuck in an Eastbourne hotel room, writing her speech. No matter how many mini-kettlefuls of coffee they make, however, she and her right-hand oaf Ollie (Chris Addison) can't quite nail it. Until, that is, her hapless adviser Glenn (James Smith) wheels in his secret weapon: a tragic local widow.

It's party conference season and hapless Secretary of State of Social Affairs and Citizenship Nicola Murray is in Eastbourne with her team of self-serving apparatchiks. Of course, she's being stalked by the godfather of spin, Malcolm Tucker, who continues his pitiless assault on Murray's self-confidence. Tucker (Peter Capaldi) manages to torpedo Nicola's big conference speech by hijacking her "applause monkey", a media-savvy, Twitterwise member of the public with a sad story. Yet again, watching Armando Iannucci's withering satire is like being caught in a firestorm of expletives and deliriously offensive jokes. It's a relentlessly testosterone-charged world - Nicola Murray even remarks at one point "it's like being trapped in a boys' toilet" - that's packed with macho posturing from egomaniacal men behaving like competitive baboons. And it's brilliant.

The new series continues of the fizzing, potty-mouthed political comedy created by Armando Iannucci. A week into her new job as secretary of state for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, Nicola Murray MP (Rebecca Front) sends the government's communications team into a spin. Her department's computer system has wiped the immigration records of 170,672 people, presenting her with two daunting tasks: keeping the fact from the press, and breaking the news to the irascible Tucker (Peter Capaldi). Handling these duties of office, Murray has to sit through lunch with the staff of The Guardian without letting her department's mishap slip.

Armando Iannucci found life imitating art last week when the media scrum surrounding BNP leader Nick Griffin became the backdrop to an edit of The Thick of It at Television Centre. Writing in the Observer, Iannucci noted that the episode in question centred on a government department going into lock-down because of... the media outside. Suddenly, the edit - usually "about as glamorous as old trousers" - became a little more exciting; so much so, in fact, that he had to down tools and fight his way through the angry mob outside.

If the past year has taught us anything it's that politicians are a bunch of selfserving, egotistical incompetents only interested in lining their own pockets. Then again, if you've ever caught an episode of masterly Westminster satire The Thick Of It, that won't have come as any great surprise. It's odd to think that, thus far, there had only been six episodes and two specials plus a movie of Armando Iannucci's lacerating satire, because when it roared into ankle-biting action on Saturday it was like welcoming back an old friend. An ulcerous, sarcastic old friend who delights in spitting pure bile, but an old friend nonetheless. Spin-off film In The Loop kept the momentum bubbling but this was the real thing.

The insults and paranoid bitching kicked off in the opening seconds and scarcely paused for breath, with Peter Capaldi's Malcolm, a masterclass in amorality, leading the way. Malcolm's every utterance is a withering blow to the guts but I particularly liked his phone remonstration - 'that's a wretchedly homophobic headline, you massive poof' - aimed at a red-top editor who'd run an unsympathetic story.

If I was nit-picking it would be the sneaking feeling that the idea of anyone getting hot under the collar over a Labour minister planning to send their child to a private school seemed a little last year. Hasn't any pretence at those kind of old Labour principles long since flown the nest? And the addition of Rebecca Front as the new minister didn't quite make up for the absence of Malcolm's pet rottweiler Jamie. But the writing in The Thick Of It is second to none, with the careerist bureaucratic underlings who prop up the whole decaying system ruthlessly exposed along with the backbiting nature of office politics. How would your colleagues assess you if asked their opinion by your new boss? Something like 'that's like asking what you think of skirting boards - I'm sure you need them but I'm not sure why'? That was unctuous Olly on ageing sidekick Glenn but feel free to lift it for personal use.

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