The Thick Of It Returns..Saturday 24th October...BBC2..10pm

Rjd2

Best news ever?
Probably one of the finest British comedies along with Peep Show of this decade. No Chris Langham for obvious reasons but rumours are rife we will be getting a Chris Morris cameo as a gay MP.
Some YouTube stuff…

Nate--IRL--

Oh thats just fantastic news! Thanks for the heads up.

Nate

anotherlostie

I love Peter Capaldi in this! Yes Minister for the noughties?

Rjd2

anotherlostie wrote: »

I love Peter Capaldi in this! Yes Minister for the noughties?

Pretty much and thats a good thing. Malcolm is a superb creation. He really is. Here is an article on his character from the Guardian the other day....

here are those who believe that the movements and decisions of our current government are as pointless as the rearrangement of deckchairs on the Titanic as it sank into the icy depths below. But there's a line in the new series of The Thick Of It – BBC2's scabrously brilliant portrayal of ministerial machinations – which describes the stagnating position Gordon Brown's party finds itself in far more accurately: New Labour is just like The Big Breakfast. Typically this metaphor comes during a characteristically venomous assault from spin doctor-in-chief and the fictional PM's all-seeing, all-swearing, all-Scottish eye, Malcolm Tucker, as he pinpoints the reality of the impending dark clouds of general election failure.

"Remember how Chris Evans started that, remember how it was a big success," scowls the magnificently foul-mouthed Tucker, jabbing his finger demonically. "And then they had that guy Johnny Vaughan, remember him? Everybody loved him, **** knows why, but they loved him. You see this here? This is ****ing series 10 of The Big Breakfast."

For those who missed it – and many did, thanks to its debut in the outer territories of Freeview, irregular scheduling and unfortunate events (actor Chris Langham left the show after being convicted of child porn offences; in the two hour-long specials his character's absence was attributed to a holiday) – The Thick Of It is usually described as a cross between Yes Minister and something good like The West Wing or The Office. It's actually far better than that. Smart, mean and remorselessly funny, thanks to its deliberately obtuse hand-held camera angles and sharp, partly improvised script, it feels too real to be classed as a satire or a regular sitcom. There are subtle digs at real-life political events like the expenses scandal, but The Thick Of It occurs in a parallel universe, albeit one also populated by feckless, spineless, self-serving idiots, AKA MPs.

For its return, The Thick Of It is being given a proper run of eight consecutive episodes and a primetime slot on BBC2. This is due in part to the success of the spin-off movie In The Loop but mainly because alongside Peep Show, The IT Crowd and Outnumbered it's one of the greatest British comedy shows of this decade.

Director Armando Iannucci (the man also responsible for I'm Alan Partridge and The Day Today) has been lauded for his creation, as have the team of writers who include Tony Roche (World Of Pub), Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show) and its very own swearing consultant, Ian Martin. But the undoubted star of the series is Peter Capaldi's Malcolm Tucker, a man certain to join the ranks of Basil Fawlty, Rigsby and Edmund Blackadder in TV's arrogant bastard hall of fame. It's not just the brilliance of these creations that links these comedy giants, the pathos of all four men comes from their resigned certainty that they alone know what they are doing amid a sea of fools.


'He is clever and does suss things out quickly … He's sort of an evil clown' – Peter Capaldi

"Yes, but I think he's a clown," says Capaldi. "The thing that amuses me about him is he thinks he's incredibly powerful and clever – and he is very clever and he does suss things out quickly – but he's sort of an evil clown."

Chatting to the 51-year-old Scot within the hallowed and maze-like compartments of BBC Television Centre – a beige wonderland of open-plan desks not dissimilar to the bland officescapes of The Thick Of It's Department of Social Affairs And Citizenship (DoSAC) is a little disconcerting. Despite the fact that he's a much calmer, more charming person than his character ("I've only lost my temper three times in my whole life"), you still expect him to snap into a Tucker rant at any second. "Well, he does look a bit like me," jokes Capaldi. People stop him in the street now, and instead of requesting autographs demand a bollocking or ask him to tell them to **** off ("… and sometimes I mean it"). Playing the PM's enforcer has changed his life. Now, instead of accepting run-of-the-mill TV drama parts as doctors, priests and psychiatrists – "Someone dull and reliable who would turn up and be pleasant," he claims modestly – he gets offered lunatics, psychos and people with venom, like Sid's dad in Skins and King Charles in The Devil's Whore. "Nobody would have cast me as a King before."

That's slightly disingenuous; he did, after all, play a transvestite in Prime Suspect and has been in numerous brilliant films including Local Hero and Dangerous Liaisons, and he has an entirely separate CV as a director (he won a best short film Oscar in 1995 as writer and director, and recently directed NHS satire Getting On). But four years ago he'd just come from a soul-destroying screen test for one of those dull, reliable parts when he first met Armando Iannucci to audition for The Thick Of It.


"I remember thinking I can't be bothered to see Armando," he says. "I was so fed up with acting. The morning audition had been with a group of people I'd already worked with and it was for one scene. I thought, 'Why at my age am I having to jump through all these hoops?' So by the time I got to Armando, I couldn't care what he wanted to do. I was pissed off. But what that did was equip me to be more powerful.

'Alistair Campbell was mentioned, but if you look at the first few episodes there's more of a Mandelson quality to him' - Peter Capaldi

Malcolm, of course, doesn't care what you think of him because he is more powerful than anybody in the room."

Tony Blair's director of communications-cum-Darth Vader of Whitehall, Alastair Campbell, is often mentioned as the inspiration for Tucker but Capaldi claims that's not totally the case.

"He was mentioned initially," he says, "but there was no ream of research or anything. I just tried to play a character who was antagonistic and powerful. It evolved; if you look at the first couple of episodes there's more of a Mandelson quality to him."

Does he think Tucker would consider staying on in government if the Tories won the election?

"No. Malcolm's got a higher purpose to pursue."

And what's that?

"To maintain a Labour government in power and if that's in danger he'll fight to the end. He'd do everything in his power to destroy them, to eliminate them."

Unsurprisingly, Capaldi doesn't see his creation as a bully but as an efficient hard worker.

"I think he's very good at what he does. There are some people he really hates, but most people he just hates. That's quite democratic. I've come to really like him; he's a force of nature and you just unleash him."

How much of the swearing is in the script and how much is improvised?

"It's mostly all in the script. I tend to follow it quite closely because there's a rhythm and a sense of baroque asceticism to it and I don't want to walk all over their work. I have discovered that I do put in a few extra ****s, but it's a little aide mémoire. If I can't remember the next line I say '****' and in that split second the next line comes."

Fans of high-level profanity will be delighted to learn that the first episode is rammed with plenty of put-downs and insults to rank alongside Tucker's finest moments (has there ever been a finer invitation to enter a room than "come the **** in or **** the **** off"?). There is also the return of keen Al Jolson fan Jamie to look forward to, a calamitous trip to The Guardian's offices, another dip into the world of their Conservative counterparts, and much fantastic bickering between departmental gimps Ollie (Chris Addison) and Glenn (James Smith), two gents Malcolm Tucker refers to as Hinge & Bracket in episode one and by way of telling them to get lost invites to "hang up your lady cocks".

The series begins with a cabinet reshuffle by the new prime minister and a desperate attempt to find "a mammal with a head" willing to fill what Tucker calls "the DoSAC hole". The unlucky MP to get the job is backbencher Nicola Murray, because Tucker complains "the only other candidate is my left bollock with a smiley face drawn on it".

Blithely ignoring her lowly status, Murray (brilliantly played by Nighty Night's Rebecca Front) is squirmingly embarrassing, but also ambitiously determined to forward her meaningless agenda of "social mobility" and provides the Thick Of It with a fresh dimension and a new challenge for Tucker.

"It's great because Nicola is a woman," says Capaldi. "It might not seem obvious but Malcolm is a people person – he actually figures out how to deal with people – so he realises after a while that battering her over the head with his swearing hammer doesn't always work. He has to find other ways to get her to do what he wants."

Like blackmail? "Essentially. The thing is, Malcolm doesn't think MPs are idiots, he just thinks they're twats."

a long but enjoyable preview in The Independant....

he bad news for MPs hoping to shore up their image in the seemingly never-ending wake of the expenses scandal is that this Saturday sees the return of The Thick of It, Armando Iannucci's brilliant and unsparing satire on the inner workings of the no longer new Labour government. Not that the party elite will try to ignore the semi-improvised sitcom when it begins a new eight-part run this weekend, because it seems that, as with Margaret Thatcher's famous enjoyment of Yes, Minister, The Thick of It is required viewing in Westminster. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the only thing worse than being laughed at is not being laughed at.

"I wanted to do something set in the world of politics that was rough and messy, slightly improvised and realistic", said Iannucci at the show's launch in 2005. "There's been a spate of dramas about politics like The Project and The Deal. I felt they were interesting but they were always very 'acted' pieces. They were fake dramas. I wanted the viewer to feel like they were actually in a room watching politicians and civil servants do what they do".

And what they do, or attempt to do, is ruthless micro-management. Iannucci describes The Thick of It as Yes, Minister meets The Larry Sanders Show, and he has former civil servant (and author of the novel Spin), Martin Sixsmith, as an adviser to the writing team. Set in the fictitious but highly plausible Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, a so-called "Super Department" that allowed Iannucci to explore a wide range of issues , DoSAC was headed by Hugh Abbot (Chris Langham), a blundering minister in the mould of Yes, Minister's Jim Hacker. Unlike Hacker, however, guidance is not coming from the suavely manipulative and urbane civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby, but from the human blowtorch that is No 10 enforcer Malcolm Tucker.

Scottish actor Peter Capaldi has been a revelation as the aggressive and profane Tucker, and a man whose inventive use of bad language (The Thick of It famously has its very own "swearing consultant") has given birth to a rich back-catalogue of filthy and very funny "Tuckerisms". The first episode of the new series includes the following instant classics: (talking of a minister) "He's so dense, light bends around him", (of another MP who has just turned down the Northern Ireland Office) "Do you know that 90 per cent of house dust is made of dead human skin? That's what you are to me", as well as the horribly funny "I'll be with you in two shakes of a crying baby". His sayings are the chief delight of the show, and the inspiration for a range of sloganised T-shirts, "The Genius of Malcolm Tucker", but on whom could such a foul-mouthed, psychopathic spin-meister possibly be based?

Tony Blair's former director of communications, Alastair Campbell, interviewed by Mark Kermode on The Culture Show earlier this year, admitted to a liberal use of swearing but denied that he and Tucker were similar in any substantial way. Sent by the BBC2 arts show to a screening of In the Loop, the The Thick of It's 2009 cinematic spin-off, Campbell said he disliked the film, but not because the portrayal of Tucker was too close to home. "On the contrary, I didn't like it because it was so far removed from the motives of most of the people I know," Campbell said, adding that he suspected that Iannucci believed that all politicians were venal and all advisers base. "Given the prevailing media wind against politics and public life, an anti-politics film is not that hard to make. But a bit like Rory Bremner becoming less funny when he started posing as a serious commentator, I fear the same is happening to Iannucci."

Ouch, but Campbell was in a minority with his view of In the Loop, an acidic satire on the US-UK rush to war in Iraq that co-starred James Gandolfini from The Sopranos. The film wasn't the first attempt to lend a transatlantic dimension to The Thick of It, because, in 2007, ABC remade the show for US TV, with Christopher Guest (This Is Spinal Tap) directing, and Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz as executive producer. Despite the talent involved, the US remake, focusing on the daily lives of low-level member of the United States Congress and his staff, didn't live to see a full-blown series. Armando Iannucci distanced himself from the failed pilot, stating "It was terrible... they took the idea and chucked out all the style. It was all conventionally shot and there was no improvisation or swearing. It didn't get picked up, thank God."

Iannucci is now in talks with HBO for an American remake closer in spirit and style to his original, shaky camera-work and foul language included. "I had originally wanted to send it to HBO and they were very keen but the BBC sold it to ABC for more money but ultimately for less money because it never got made", he says.

But a misjudged remake isn't the most serious hurdle the makers of The Thick of It have had to overcome. In 2007, actor Chris Langham, who played the DoSoc's bumbling minister Hugh Abbot, was convicted of downloading obscene images of children and sentenced to 10 months in prison (the sentence reduced on appeal) and made to sign the sex offenders register. Langham's arrest led to the actor being banned from appearing at the 2006 British Comedy Awards, in which The Thick of It had been nominated, while in the subsequent The Thick of It Christmas special Langham's absence was explained by Hugh Abbot having been sent on a fact-finding mission to Australia – never mind the irony of the former colony being where the British historically sent their convicted criminals.

For the upcoming series, the department has a new ministerial lamb for the slaughter – a fresh Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Citizenship, Nicola Murray, played by the excellent Rebecca Front. Given a surprise Cabinet post in a Prime Ministerial reshuffle, Murray was so far down the list of candidates that Tucker doesn't even have a file on her. "She's a problem for Malcolm Tucker because she has ideas," says the show's producer Adam Tandy, "and ideas cost money, which is one thing no government has at the moment." In the meantime, there's plenty for Tucker to get apoplectic about, including the fact that Murray is intending to send her daughter to a private school ("You are saying that all the local state schools that this government have drastically improved are knife-addled rape sheds").

Front, a quick-witted actor and comedian whose association with Iannucci dates from The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You with... Alan Partridge, is already shaping up to be a useful sparring partner for Malcolm Tucker. "It's great that Rebecca's character brings a new colour to the show," says Peter Capaldi, whose language has not been toned down in the transfer from BBC4 to BBC2. He says of his partly improvised, but mostly scripted, tirades that "The reason that they are so sweary is that, if I can't quite remember, I'll go for an f-word... it's an aide-mémoire. I do get into that zone when practising... and my wife gets fed up with the swearing. She sighs with relief when it's all over."

Also returning to the fray – albeit fearing the sack from Front's "new broom" – are Chris Addison's baby-faced junior adviser Ollie Reeder, an archetypal graduate policy wonk ("Feet off the furniture, you Oxbridge twat, you're not on a punt now", was how Tucker once upbraided him), senior policy adviser Glenn Cullen (James Smith) and civil service press secretary Terri Coverley (Joanna Scanlan). This trio may live in fear of Tucker, but that doesn't mean their repartee can't be equally as venomous. And what is particularly bracing about The Thick of It is the absence of an obviously sympathetic character.

James Smith, who plays Glenn, a man with no apparent life beyond work, says he half-expected to be written out of the new series as part of the reshuffle. "I assumed Glen would be a casualty," he says. "It was great that it didn't happen. We've been working out how Glenn and Ollie would survive. It's frightening that all of us end up playing a pretty close version of ourselves. I'd say that 80 per cent of Glenn is me. What's alarming is that the writers pick up on aspects of your personality and lay it bare in front of you."

Meanwhile, with a General Election approaching, were they conscious of a need for balance? The universal reply from producer and actors is that the show is not party political. It's about the mechanism. "And I don't think it's exclusively about politicians," says Rebecca Front, remarking on the show's wider resonance. "It's about all kinds of office politics, relationships and people struggling to make it work while holding on to tiny bits of power."

'The Thick of It' starts on Saturday 24 October at 10.10pm on BBC2

Help! I'm in the cast By Rebecca Front

I have always loved 'The Thick of It'. My parents love it, my husband loves it and all my friends love it too. So I was ridiculously excited when Armando Iannucci asked me to join the show. The downside of this is that I'm incredibly nervous about what they'll think when they see it. My husband waved me off on my first day with the words: "This is my favourite show. Don't balls it up."And that really helped.

Armando and the writers very generously allowed me to develop the character with them. My main concern was that she shouldn't just be a straight foil to the excellent comedy characters already there. Years ago, I had been in a children's sitcom with Bernie Clifton, set in a magic theatre that was about to be shut down. Each week, as Bernie had worked the studio audience into hysterics with some piece of slapstick craziness, my character would rush into the mayhem and say: "Bernie! Be serious! We've got a theatre to save." And every week, those kids hated my guts. So I didn't want Nicola to be the "Seriously Bernie" of the show. Fortunately, the writers weren't going to let that happen. They loved the idea that Nicola Murray, this nobody from nowhere whom Malcolm Tucker has only promoted because she's anonymous, should be full of herself, and think she's somehow been "chosen", marked out for greatness. And I loved it, too, because I think it's quite unusual to see female characters who have an inflated ego.

Another aspect of her character came from a conversation I had with someone who has worked in media management with certain political figures. When asked what would make a new minister like Nicola a nightmare to deal with, he replied archly that the worst thing would be if she believed in things. Nicola has ideals and an agenda. The government has no money. That's a good recipe for conflict.

The quality of writing is exemplary, so it has been an absolute pleasure playing great scenes with amazing actors. You never forget the first time you get "Tuckered" – screamed at by Malcolm. But I found it strangely exhilarating. Peter Capaldi is one of the best actors I've ever worked with, and it's an honour to have him swear at me. And even better, I get to swear back.

Tucker's team: A who's who

Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi)

The feared Downing Street enforcer and all-round attack dog is loosely based on Alastair Campbell, and the director of communications is the author of some spectacular foul-mouthed rants.

Ollie Reeder (Chris Addison)

So young yet so cynical, the special adviser to the Secretary of State is scorned by Malcolm Tucker for his Oxbridge education ('Brideshead Revisited' is one of his nicknames for him).

Glenn Cullen (James Smith)

The senior special adviser to the Secretary of State is a man with no interests outside of work. Nicola Murray thinks "he looks like he works in menswear at Selfridges... I can't think what to say to him."

Nicola Murray MP (Rebecca Front)

A surprise posting in a Cabinet reshuffle, Murray is such an obscure MP that Tucker doesn't even have a file on her. The newly appointed Secretary of State has some big ideas on social inclusivity.

Terri Coverley (Joanna Scanlan)

A civil servant notionally responsible for press relations at DoSAC – although her chores also include buying fruit salad for the incoming minister. Coverley is assumed to be good at her job because she was recruited from Waitrose, but is really after an easy life.

Gekko

Looking forward to this. Watched In the Loop on DVD not that long ago which was good.

Rjd2

Bump!
New series in a few hours! The final trailer from the show.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

that was absolutely ****ing fantastic

mike65

One day the writers will run out of foul insults and character description!

Weird time slot/day of week for this btw.

Skid

Three weeks into the series, and 'The Thick of It' is getting better every week.
Lousy time slot though. Almost as if the BBC want to keep it under the radar to avoid contrived outrage at the unparliamentary language.

Send Malcolm in to have a word with Brian Cowen, he'd sort our Government out fairly lively:
From Episode 3

"I think we should use the carrot and stick approach, yeah. You take a carrot, you stick it up his f**king arse, followed by the stick!"

Rjd2

SkidMark wrote: »

Three weeks into the series, and 'The Thick of It' is getting better every week.
Lousy time slot though. Almost as if the BBC want to keep it under the radar to avoid contrived outrage at the unparliamentary language.

Send Malcolm in to have a word with Brian Cowen, he'd sort our Government out fairly lively:
From Episode 3

"I think we should use the carrot and stick approach, yeah. You take a carrot, you stick it up his f**king arse, followed by the stick!"

The scheduling is terrible, and the ratings have been dire as its been up against MOTD for **** sake! I missed the last episode, but I did think the first two episodes were to reliant on Malcolm for laughs, still enjoyed them though.

Zak Flaps

Loved the first 2 series,but wasn't sure about the first episode of this new series,but after rewatching it and the next 2 episodes,i'm loving it...up to the usual brilliant standards...you can watch each episode a number of times and get something new from it each time....there is so much good stuff crammed into each episode...rebecca front is a terrific new addition also,but then she's always been brilliant...

Sr. Pirotecnic

Anyone else think the Ollie character (the young lad) is being underused? Am also missing Jamie, Malcolm's no2, he of the infamous iPod/Al Jolson rant.

Rjd2

Jamie is hugely missed isnt he? Hopefully he pops up soon enough.

Rjd2

For **** sake I had a massive paragraph typed up and I hit the wrong button. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
So erm Bump

I have accepted we wont have Jamie in this series which is a shame but storyline it makes sense. The season has been about Malcolm losing control and it makes sense that **** hits the fan without his psycho mini me about. :pac:
The last episode Malcolm however lost his job after Fleming got rid. I liked the performanc of Haig. he was phony. creepy, petty and charmless which is how I imagined him to be.
I still think the show could survive without Malcolm if they decided to focus on Mannion and the opposition. The early episodes of this season had to much Malcolm for me and the other characters got no chance to breath. The best episode was probably the Radio 5 one which coincidentally had the least Malcolm.
Front has been excellent as well, some will never get over the loss of Langham but thats not her fault and lads she is still hot as fook. :eek::eek:

So erm what do other boardies think about the finale, Jamie, Front's hotness etc? :eek::P

An tSaoi

Sr. Pirotecnic wrote: »

Anyone else think the Ollie character (the young lad) is being underused?

Young? He's nearly 40.

This series has been quite mixed. When it's at its best, it's funnier that the Langham series, but when it's at its worst, it's been quite poor. I'm not sure what to make of it. Still an excellent show, no doubt about it, but not quite as consistent as it was.

And the man who played the rival spin doctor in the latest episode was awful. Terribly hammy. I appreciate that the character is supposed to be ver-the-top, but there was no need for such distracting over-acting on Haig's part.

qwertplaywert

Heard rumours about Jamie returning next week!

Anyone else have a feeling next week might see Malcom switch to the opposition, then ride with them to victory?

mike65

No, Malcolm Tucker is Labour.

Skid

I really can't believe Malcolm is going out with a whimper like this. He has been the central character in every episode this series, even more than in previous years. I'm expecting a big twist in the last episode, he must come back one way or another.

The series has probably been too focussed on Malcolm at the expense of the others, he is a great character but it's been The Malcolm Tucker Show since the start of this run. Can't wait for next week's episode though.

eth0_

An tSaoi wrote: »

Young? He's nearly 40.

Chris Addison is in his late 30's but it's clear Ollie is a young newbie....I thought he was around 30 years old for ages!


Can't believe Malcolm's gone. He's the most amazing character on TV today. I'm sure he'll come back fighting in the last episode next week! No one screws over Malcolm Tucker