Why Have I Never Seen ‘The Thick of It’ Before?

I recently began following Rebecca Front on twitter, she’s a British comedienne and actress who I have been a fan of since I was about 13.

That led me to immediately start following Armando Iannucci who has written and produced some of the greatest British TV and Radio comedies of the last two decades; both Alan Partridge’s, The Day Today, On The Hour and The Saturday Night Armistice to name but a few.

Rebecca and Armando’s twitters mentioned a BBC TV show called The Thick of It, which I’d kinda heard of but had never seen. So on a lazy Saturday morning I checked out series 3 of The Thick of It out on iPlayer and was stunned with how incredibly well written and performed this fierce political satire is.

The Thick of It satirises the inner workings of British government, revolving mainly around the ministers and civil servants at the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (DoSAC). The farcical happenings of DoSAC regularly result in aggressive, abusive and dramatic bollockings from the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, Malcolm Tucker who tries in vain to keep the media at bay. Peter Capaldi’s performance as Malcolm Tucker is quite possibly the greatest comic acting I’ve seen in years, he makes this unforgiving and virulent dynamo come alive.

According to Armando Iannucci, The Thick of It scripts are sent to a swearing-consultant who adds some of the show’s more coarse and abusive language.

Some of the dialogue is improvised to provide a greater sense of reality, which is also heightened by the use of hand-held cameras and a complete lack of incidental music.

Series 3 of The Thick of It stars Rebecca Front as Nicola Murray, a new Minister in charge of DoSAC who seems to have been appointed to a position beyond her abilities for lack of another willing candidate. Her lack of experience and the general incompetancy of the DoSAC workforce results in them all being the subject of Malcolm Tucker’s foul-mouthed abuse, peppered with hysterical witticisms.

Malcolm has referred to an MP as “so dense light bends around him” and degrades Nicola Murray with names such as “Glummy Mummy” and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”.

Malcolm Tucker’s character is thought to derive from Tony Blair’s former Director of Communications and Strategy, Alastair Campbell. Michael White, The Guardian’s former political editor partially agrees with this assessment, describing Tucker as:

“…a plausible satire on Alastair [Campbell]– though much funnier, more brutal and more obscene.”
[source: The Guardian 23/11/09]

But Michael White was quite critical of The Thick of It, saying that he didnt much care for “the comedy of humiliation”. While I tend to agree (Frankie Boyle’s Live DVD made me feel slightly sad), I find Malcolm’s comments to be humiliating, but we rarely see the characters responses, let alone see them actually humiliated. Except perhaps when Malcolm tells Nicole her dress is so loud it’s giving him tinnitus.

His insults on-the-whole are like water off a duck’s back and when everyone within range (press, Ministers and Civil Service alike) is being given the same treatment, no-one seems overly dejected. DoSAC staff usually just dampened down into submission, ready to commit the next political gaff.

I really must stop now because I could talk about my new favourite TV show all day long. The new series of the The Thick of It is shown on BB2 on Saturday nights and is available on iPlayer for several weeks after transmission.

Check it out, I’m “allover it, like a pigeon on a chip”.

• The Thick of It – BBC Programme Guide