The Thick Of It

Dressed like 'the manager of an organic wine bar', a disgusted Peter Mannion MP (the incomparable Roger Allam) is obliged to attend an isolated 'Thought Camp' in the country, run by - who else - the detestable Stewart Pearson. As ever, Pearson doesn't so much engage as vomit up a continual stream of corporate ticker tape and New Age sewage: 'Isolation is the mother of renewal'; 'Time is a leash on the dog of ideas.' Mutters a ball-tossing Mannion: 'Some of us had to go through this hippie shit the first time around.' Back at HQ, Adam and Fergus aren't so much holding the fort as putting it to the torch and leapfrogging in the ashes - having bought a taxpayer-funded bank 'out of social embarrassment'. And then tragedy strikes. Glorious.

Back in the Thick Of It

A new series of The Thick Of It sets its sights on the coalition 'omnishambles'. Is life beginning to imitate art?

Review: The Thick of It

The ConDem coalition has been both a godsend and an almighty cul de sac for political satirists.

Malcolm returned in The Thick of It, his early melancholy dispelled by his decision that it's time to evict Nicola Murray from her post as Leader of the Opposition. "She's electoral asbestos," he tells a fellow plotter. "She's going to sleep with the fishes. Or at least witter on at them until they lose the fucking will to live." The Thick of It isn't sweet or lovable and hasn't a fraction of Moone Boy's essential good-heartedness. I don't think it's forgiving or tender to any of its characters. But it doesn't need to be because it offers an unceasing stream of savagely funny lines. "I can't even see the clicking of the pilot light," Malcolm said disgustedly, as he searched in Nicola's eyes for the "fire" of political passion. Difficult to like him, but almost as hard not to laugh.

The Thick Of It series 4 episode 2 review

Overall, it was an episode of chess moves, hatched plots, and gradually escalating storylines peppered with characteristic flashes of brilliant writing and the odd clever laugh-out-loud line.

Nervous Nicola Murray, now Leader of the Opposition, is practising her solemn walk for the Remembrance Day wreath laying ceremony. She's not very good at it, as her éminence grise Malcolm Tucker observes, "You're not throwing a straw frisbee in slow motion." Yes, mighty Malcolm (Peter Capaldi) is back, surfing a rip-tide of invective, and he's already plotting to bring down the hapless Murray (Rebecca Front) whose first major policy initiative, under the unfortunate heading of "Quiet Bat People", is torpedoed by everyone, particularly those closest to her.

Tucker is greyer than ever, like an ash-cloud of malevolence, which is an effective camouflage when he practises his dark arts in even darker cupboards, pulling would-be allies to one side for a little word. Of course, most of his words consist of four letters, so brace yourselves. Malcolm, you have been missed.

While you'd hardly call the voice of Malcolm Tucker comforting, there's something reassuring about this return to familiar waters. And tonight offers proof, if any were needed, that rank incompetence isn't limited to coalition government. With Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) over-promoted to leader of the opposition and undermined by her supposed allies, Malcolm's rage is now as impotent as his schemes are fiendish. A shadow cabinet meeting vies for most excruciating set-piece with a press conference, at which Nicola endorses universally derided government policies and Malcolm is moved to ponder, 'What the fuck is this? Tinker, tailor, soldier, cunt?'. Acutely well-observed, impeccably cast and acerbically performed: only real-world politics could offer such a toxic onslaught of gallows humour.

The Thick of It: lines of the week - episode two

Malcolm is back - and as viciously, hilariously sweary as ever. But which were your favourite lines in the second episode of The Thick of It?

Review: Tucker working in opposition... to his boss

Three years away from our screens, and thus was it immediately clear that Malcolm Tucker's professional life was not the tack and jibe of his heady years at the helm of government.

Life continues to veer from crisis to disaster in the fourth series of Armando Iannucci's sublime political comedy, with media strategist Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) here making his first appearance of the series. Leader of the Opposition Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) struggles with left and right in more ways than one as she prepares for a public appearance with the PM and tries to manoeuvre away from the "assistance" of Tucker.