Peter Capaldi

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.

Nicola Murray is the new Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship in The Thick Of It (BBC2, Saturday). Sounds important; it isn't. If she'd said no, the only other candidate was Malcolm Tucker's left bollock with a smiley face drawn on it.

It's really just a job title, not a job, but Nicola doesn't know that yet, and has ideas about things like social mobility. She's like the new girl at school - trying to work out who to make friends with, where to fit in. The other kids - Ollie and Glenn and Terri - circle suspiciously. They sneak on each other, and lie, and gang up.

Then Malcolm, the big playground bully, shows up. He opens his enormous mouth as wide as it will go and vomits out a seemingly never-ending torrent of verbal abuse. If you're reading pre-watershed, or you're a child, you must stop reading right now, because I've put some of Malcolm's bad words in. It's hard not to - they're such a big part of The Thick Of It. "You're a fucking human dart board, and Eric fucking Bristow's on the oche throwing a million darts made of shit right at you," he splutters to Nicola. "Jesus Christ, you're a fucking omni-shambles, that's what you are . . . "

And so it goes. It's filthy, and yet it's so beautifully crafted and so perfectly delivered, it's almost as if Malcolm's actually turned swearing into art. And omni-shambles - isn't that lovely?

Nicola (played by the funny and brilliant Rebecca Front, a welcome addition) has a brave attempt at taking Malcolm on at his own game. She tells him her daughter is on heroin, "although she has cut down since getting pregnant by that Nigerian people smuggler, cos the track marks would have affected her porn career". But it's futile, like taking on Lionel Messi - Lionel fucking Messi - at football. And she ends up sacrificing her daughter's future for Malcom's party line.

I want to work at the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. I mean, it's lovely here at the Guardian - looking around, I'm surrounded by intelligent and mostly reasonable people, tapping away on their keyboards. There's some good-natured banter, a few jokes, a bit of gentle back-stabbing. But nothing like what goes on in The Thick Of It. I want the blistering bickering and the bullying, the full-on playground experience, I want to be bollocked by Malcolm Tucker.

It is a brilliant performance by Peter Capaldi, and by Front, by all of them. But the real genius is in the writing. It's so out there and yet totally believable, so polished, so well observed, right down to the smallest details. That Nicola Murray stands in front of a campaign poster for Liam Bentley so that it reads IAM BENT right by her head is funny; that it immediately appears on YouTube is funnier still, and that the YouTube footage is intercut with random bits from Family Guy is best of all. "Why do people fucking do that on YouTube, it's not even funny," says the hapless Nicola. Yes it is. At least she's learning the language.

The movie - In The Loop - was good, but this is better. The Thick Of It works best like this, in short, rude blasts. What's going to happen when the Tories get in, I'm wondering (and worrying). Does The Thick Of It work in opposition?

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.

The Thick of It review

There's nobody on television more humiliating or derogatory than this political sitcom's main character, the tyrannical Malcolm Tucker (played with pop-eyed relish by Peter Capaldi). In this episode, the first in a new series, even the few lines in which he didn't swear were offensive.

The Thick of It reaches the thin end

Peter Capaldi has invented a great comic character, as memorable as Alf Garnett, Victor Meldrew or old man Steptoe.

After the success of film spin-off In the Loop last spring, Armando Iannucci's acclaimed political sitcom returns to the small screen - and its raised profile sees it promoted from BBC Four to Two. Rightly so, as it's sharply written, satirically spot-on and often shows uncanny prescience in its themes. Think The West Wing but with drabber corridors of power, no happy Hollywood endings and Tourette's Syndrome. Most memorably, it's graced by sweary spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (the eye-bulgingly, vein-poppingly brilliant Peter Capaldi) - a magnificently monstrous comic creation, not at all based on New Labour attack dog Alistair Campbell, honest. Tonight's opener, typically, starts at breakneck speed with insults flying like bullets and only gets more machine gun-like. It's Reshuffle Day at Number 10 but with the Prime Minister on his way out, no one fancies joining him at the helm of a sinking ship. Needs must, so a backbencher (Rebecca Front) gets promoted from obscurity to the Cabinet. Naturally, with her new ideas and desire to actually do something, she turns out to be trouble, especially for the apoplectic Tucker.

As Peep Show comes to an end, so the other gem of the British comedy landscape returns for a very welcome news series. Yes, The Thick of It is back, and so is the sublime and sweary Malcolm Tucker played with relish by Peter Capaldi. There's a new minister for social affairs and citizenship (Rebecca Front) for Malcolm to deal with, and no doubt Olly, Glenn and Terri will conspire to make Malcolm's life one giant migraine. It's as creatively foul-mouthed as ever, and one can't help feel you are watching true genius at work here.

In the Loop and leads nominations for Scottish Baftas

The political satire In The Loop has three nominations, for actor Peter Capaldi, director Armando Iannucci and the film's writers.

This 2007 edition of the black political satire is packed with blood-drawingly sharp observations and ruthless, brilliant dialogue. As well as a lot of laughs. We eavesdrop on Peter Mannion (Roger Allam), a bemused politician who wonders if he's out of step with the modern world. Can he still call yobbos yobbos, for instance? Monstrous spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) and his ferocious sidekick Jamie (Paul Higgins) are back with language that would make a modern rugby league team blush.