The Thick Of It

If you want an antidote to the cross-channel razzmatazz of Saturday-night TV, you can hardly improve on The Thick of It. With its grey look, its cynicism and its torrent of profanities, it's about as far from a grinning Tess Daly as you could get. It's also horribly funny, in a nasty, mean way. "Get over here now," bawls Malcolm Tucker at hapless minister Nicola Murray after her latest gaffe, "and it might be advisable to wear brown trousers and a shirt the colour of blood..." His raw temper and sulphurous turn of phrase are at the heart of the programme but the bumbling of the civil servants is always a source of joy, too. This week they've wiped all the details of UK immigrants by mistake. Whoops. To be brutal, the characterisation isn't quite as assured as in previous series and there isn't the same streamlined brilliance to the plotting, but it's still essentially wonderful.

The Thick of It: series three, episode two

A trip to the Guardian for an interview sees The Thick of It recover some of its verve.

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.

Out of the Loop

This once-biting political satire now feels strangely dated.

Series 3 Review

The character of Hugh Abbot, for all his faults, offered the viewer a lifeline into this alien world of honed amorality; Nicola Murray doesn't achieve that, she's just another parasite sucking the life out of the reciprocating parasites that surround her.

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?

Right back in the spin

It's an odd and often depressing business writing notes about a comedy show. When the comedy doesn't work you end up with a meagre stack of descriptive redundancies that are only there because you wanted to show willing.

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.

Rebecca Front on being in The Thick of It

Throughout its run, The Thick of It team will be sharing their experience of show here on the BBC Comedy Blog. Last week the producer Adam Tandy gave a handy overview of the story so far, and this week we're delighted to hear from new star Rebecca Front.