W1A

What does the BBC stand for? What is it there to do? When on W1A a new show is described as "Countryfile meets Bake Off with a bit of The One Show thrown in just in case" it's a contender for most astute sentence broadcast on the BBC in the last decade.

A metamockumentary about the BBC shown on the BBC, W1A - made by the people who brought you Twenty Twelve - might seem as ghoulish as funeral selfies, but the Beeb enjoys holding a mirror up to itself, admiring itself with a nervously clenched grin. The situation we find ourselves in is this: Tinder, delivery sushi and other digital developments have chipped away at the stiff principles the BBC was built on, and with each Wi-Fied, neon and highly accelerated second that passes, the BBC spins further into existential crisis. A "film crew" follows newly appointed head of values Ian Fletcher - previously seen delivering the Olympics in Twenty Twelve - round the inner workings of the BBC as he tries to keep afloat in a sea of floundering morons bobbing along on empty buzzwords alone.

The managerial flapping involved in pleasing all the people all the time can't help but generate a miasma of total guff that hinders almost everything, including producing programmes. Or to give it its real name, "precipitating compelling output". It's like watching bureaucrats in the last days of Rome, except the papers they're shuffling are digital. It's like watching your Brylcreemed dad, who never bothered to speak to you from behind his paper, microwaving cajun wedges in the bare kitchen of his new bedsit after an acrimonious divorce. All told, it's pretty uncomfortable.

Hugh Bonneville interview

Hugh Bonneville explains why the corporation is right to show its sense of humour.

Can the BBC survive the Twenty Twelve treatment?

Can the Corporation survive the Twenty Twelve treatment? James Rampton finds out on the set of W1A.

Hugh Bonneville interview

TV Choice met Hugh Bonneville, who plays Ian, at the BBC's New Broadcasting House in central London where W1A is also filmed. So that's all good!

Hugh Bonneville locked out of BBC whilst filming W1A

Hugh Bonneville reveals that life imitated art recently when a doorman refused him entry to BBC Broadcasting House while he was filming upcoming satire W1A.

Is W1A the BBC's most risky comedy ever?

This time, in W1A, Twnty Twelve's Ian Fletcher has the bigwigs at Broadcasting House in his sights - or as Hugh Bonnevile puts it, he aims to 'clarify, define, or re-define the core purpose of the BBC across all its functions'.