Rebecca Front

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?

The Thick of It returned to our screens having been promoted from BBC4 to BBC2, which, obviously, in no way mirrored the promotion of Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) who has moved from absolutely nowhere to secretary of state at the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship.

Thus far, Nicola is holding her own despite being denied the extraordinarily amusing (swearing can be both funny and clever, but don't tell the kids) lexicon of foul-mouthed invective habitually gifted to Tucker, while already participating in the visual gag of the year (decade? millennium?) so far.

Meanwhile, Jesus H f***ing Corbett (as Malcolm would, and indeed does, say), I dearly wish I could share some of last night's magisterial Tuckerisms but, thrillingly, every single one is such unquotable uberfilth that, fingers crossed, we'll soon see Malcolm on Question Time.

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.

The sacred profanities

I've been in the thick of some glorious swearing of late. But should I let my children watch it?

Armando Iannucci's marvellously caustic political sitcom returns with a new minister heading the hapless Department of Social Affairs. Played by Rebecca Front (The Day Today), she'll treat Malcolm Tucker - the petrifying Alastair Campbell-style spin doctor - with "a little less respect than he's used to," says Iannucci.

Interview with Rebecca Front

Earlier this week Armando Iannucci tweeted that Rebecca Front would be the new Minister for Social Affairs in the next series of The Thick of It. We got terribly excited at the prospect of this and got in touch with Rebecca to find out more.