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Why I Love...The Thick of It

Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It
  • Posted at 4:05pm
  • 20 October 2009
  • by TomCole-RT

Armando Iannucci once explained the brilliance of Yes Minister: "[It was] more than a sitcom, it was a crash course in contemporary political studies - it opened the lid on the way the government really operated." The same could easily be said about his own political tour de force, The Thick of It, a manic exposition of the chaos and intrigue that are all part of modern day-to-day existence in Whitehall.

The Thick of It picks up where the political satires of the 1980s and 90s left off, to explore the relationships between ministers, their departments and party media chiefs, all of whom are predictably flawed, with the government being massively incompetent, the civil service resigned and bitter, and the spin doctors downright abusive.

Each episode centres on some crisis or other, usually a blunder made by a hapless politician, and the efforts of Oberspinfuhrer Malcolm Tucker to manipulate the media, cover up the error and maintain the illusion of an intelligent and united government.

In the opening episode of the first series, for instance, Malcolm puts the kibosh on a minister's announcement a scant ten minutes before a press conference, forcing the flustered politician to give, for want of a better term, a non-speech to the media.

However, later in the day and on the back of a prime ministerial instruction to proceed with the initiative, Malcolm orders the minister to inform the press that he did, in fact, make the announcement and that they somehow missed it, prompting the poor fellow to dejectedly enquire, "What level of reality am I supposed to be operating on?"

Malcolm Tucker is, in fact, the jewel in The Thick of It's crown. As archetypal a spin doctor as Sir Humphrey Appleby was a civil servant, and played to unhinged perfection by Peter Capaldi, Tucker is a terrifying gestalt of Alastair Campbell, Machiavelli and a rabid alsatian.

He's become the series' standard-bearer, as well as the mouthpiece for some of the most kaleidoscopically colourful language ever broadcast on British TV. Do a quick YouTube search for "Tucker's Law". See what I mean? And, bearing in mind Alastair Campbell's very frank email to Newsnight, at times he seems almost scarily believable…

While The New Statesman had to stretch its subject matter to absurdity to get a laugh and Yes Minister operated firmly within the conventions of a classic sitcom, The Thick of It is almost Blair Witch-real with its jerky, mock-documentary style and semi-improvised dialogue.

Armando Iannucci might well be right in his assertion that Yes Minister was the series that first lifted the lid on the workings of government - but history will show that it was The Thick of It that built on that foundation to give us our most candid tour around the corridors of power.

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