The Thick Of It

The Thick Of It was comedy of the year, no contest. Well there was a contest, because geriatric ward sitcom Getting On was also a hoot. But it only ran for three episodes - there must be more, surely? - so it doesn't really count. But when it came to the sheer delirious joy of ented spleen splatting off the walls of the corridors of power, The Thick Of It's scabrous language warmed the cancerous cockles of my scurvy heart.

The fall and rise of Malcolm Tucker gave the mighty Peter Capaldi a fiesta of invectives, but it was no one-man show. Everywhere you turned, the lunacy of political spin was sent screaming through the mincer. The prize quote in the climactic episode came when one spin-crazed monkey announced: 'We're going to be triangulating to a semi-aggressive tactical grid.' Which got the only valid response possible: 'You're talking s***.'

And so the third season of the sharpest sitcom on TV effs and jeffs its way inventively towards its denouement, with Nicola Murray MP (Rebecca Front) and her party facing annihilation at the ballot box. Yet just when they need him most, resident rottweiler of spin Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) has been placed on gardening leave, reduced to lobbing popcorn restlessly at the television when Andrew Neil appears. However, even in his absence, Malcolm's still giving harassed minister Murray the heebie-jeebies - "I keep imagining every time I open my filing cabinet that he's going to be crouched in there eating a lamb shank," she groans - and sure enough, her nightmares become reality when Malcolm's offered a ticket back to the front line by an unlikely new ally, priggish blue-sky thinker Julius Nicholson (Alex MacQueen). "He is Lazarus, isn't he? He just can't die," observes Murray, ruefully. Thrillingly, the episode hints that the Opposition has unearthed its own Malcolm Tucker, a counter-spinner so fearsome that his short and unprintable nickname is whispered in hushed tones throughout the corridors of power. It seems as if everyone's tooling up for a battle royale; sparks and spittle will fly.

The Thick of It: the finale

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

The Thick of It - the best of

Tomorrow is the last episode of this series of The Thick of It; we've blogged it all here. These were my top 10 moments so far. What were yours?

The Thick Of It series 3 episode 7 review

The penultimate episode of The Thick Of It throws up some challenges for Malcolm Tucker... It was the emergence of Steve Fleming, and the return of the blue skies windbag Julius Nicholson, who provided the signs that something was afoot.

Comic release: Is it time to forgive Chris Langham?

Like everyone else, James Hanning was shocked when the star of television's The Thick of It was convicted of downloading images of child abuse. Despite the actor's protestations of innocence, Hanning, like many, thought that where there was smoke there must be fire. But the more he researched the story, the less certain he became: was Langham a 'paedophile'? Or had he been found guilty by the tabloid media and consigned to oblivion for a moment of madness?

The political satire continues. Nicola Murray MP (Rebecca Front) needs to find a celebrity to publicise a new "Healthy Choices" campaign. But Steve Fleming, the PM's new fixer (played with diabolical glee by David Haig) has competing priorities, demanding massaged crime figures for an urgent press briefing. When Murray's team bungles both tasks, spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) is incandescent. Stuck between Tucker and Fleming, Murray can only ask, "Could you two tell me in which order and from which direction I'm going to be shafted?"

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.

The Thick of It: series three, episode seven

Where does Malcolm go from here?

Locating The Thick of It

The Thick of It's Production Designer Simon Rogers explains about the locations used to film the series.