A thread for 'The Thick Of It' (and 'In The Loop' as well)

While I totally understand the reasons behind it, I've been getting kind of annoyed with all the Tucker/thick of it etc. references recently. I suppose people can be pleased that their TV show/movie became so ubiquitous so quickly.

i wasn't feeling the guardian column so much

and the last series was a bit variable (ie some brilliant, like the richard bacon ep, some less so)

but you know, it was pretty obscure when it first aired

The Tucker-as-columnist thing didn't work because Tucker is only that brutally honest in private - he wouldn't actually write that way in a national newspaper - so it felt off.

There's a great out-take from the Malcolm Punches Glenn episode where Tucker's running off to urgently prevent something and a guy stops him and goes "you're live on the Times Online vodcast, is there anything you'd like to say to the people?"

Tucker looks at the camera for a split second then runs off up the stairs, but then stops halfway, turns round, thinks about what he's just been asked, does the Aguirre-looking-at-monkey face and then sprints off up the stairs.

hahaha

I think that's the same episode where he calls Ollie a "minge flannel," which killed me. I also liked "the beige power ranger" and "the unbaked gingerbread boy" for S3 Ollie insults.

Are they going to do more of these? Will Malcolm still be the focus, but in opposition?

I don't think they should do anymore

One-offs maybe, but not a whole series

there will be more

as i cryptically said a little above, they possibly dropped the ball by not having lib dems

would have been a good thing to introduce in series 3 instead of concentrating-too-much-for-my-liking on glen and the annoying civil servant woman

I could watch annoying-civil-servant-woman all day, I think her character is amazing.

Peep Show keeps going on and on, a la US TV progs, so I expect there will be more

there's only been like 16 eps of this tom!

with major cast changes!

Oh, I thought there had been more. I missed most of the last series, and I didn't see the first series at all, so I must have only seen about 5 or 6 of these!

I thought they were going to do a handful more specials as the build-up to the election? The end of the last series would certainly be a weird note to end on, given they'd just introduced The Fucker.

o god it wd be so epic if he became a regular

i was more into the tory shenanigans than rebecca front's lot in the third series

roger allam crushing it all the way through + the steve hilton guy

Roger Allam rules, of course. You know that Dad's Army episode where Capt. Mainwaring's long lost brother shows up and he's a disreputable drunk? I reckon TTOI could do the same with Peter Mannion and get Christopher Hitchens to play his brother.

ha

if IA wanted to upset people (he should) then a show about internal lib dem-tory politics would be just the ticket

feel like they've 'done' the other lot enough, though obviously you can't not have tucker

lid dems are so colourless, though, not sure how to 'do' them

IA = AI = armando iannucci

AI = Lib Dem supporter

late to the party & i've just watched this over the past few weeks after catching snippets of episodes on TV and thinking "i don't like this" or "i'm over this sort of thing" but i was just wide-eyed with amazement through most of it, esp. the specials.

it took me a while to get through each ep because i had to rewind and watch sections over either because i couldn't believe what i had just heard or because i loved what i had just heard and had to hear it again.

glen is amazing, would actually like more of him, not less. julius is really astonishing though, a headfuck of a performance, it's incredible what he does in each brief scene he has. capaldi, well, it goes without saying how good he is. but he really really is.

lid dems are so colourless, though, not sure how to 'do' them

Shame they've already got Julius because he's be a perfect LibDem. They don't really have a Campbell/Coulson figure though.

There's a great out-take from the Malcolm Punches Glenn episode where Tucker's running off to urgently prevent something and a guy stops him and goes "you're live on the Times Online vodcast, is there anything you'd like to say to the people?"

this is great, probably the best episode of that series

"did you have a nice poofmas?"

Aiannucci
Quiet day on Twitter from me. We're writing a Thick of It book at the moment. Should be out later in the year. All new material.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/yes-in-the-loop-writers-get-an-hbo-show.html

Good news for In the Loop superfans: Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci will write Veep, a new political comedy show from HBO that may star Julia Louis-Dreyfus. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Veep “follows a female senator who becomes vice president of the United States and finds the job is nothing like she expected and everything everyone ever warned about.” Terrific! We can now scratch the Blackwell-Iannucci-HBO-Louis-Dreyfus collaboration off our list of fantasy creative alliances, below.

oO

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/11/gears-of-comedy-total-pussy-test-drives-monster-military-hardware/

lawl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkkP_klodNQ

haaa... love this show.

we are in a prison drama. this is like the shawshank redemption, only with more tunneling through shit and no fucking redemption.

I just caught Peter Capaldi being a Wise Man on BBC's 'The Nativity' - kept expecting him to swear.

I noticed he was going for the Sean Connery school of Scottish accent acting.

he seems like a chill person irl

i guess that's what acting's about

I read a thing where he claimed to never swear IRL as well. Malc must be deeply cathartic for him.

In answer to all those who've been asking, a new series of The Thick of It is commissioned and work begins on scripts next month.

hope they make hollander a reg

the steve hilton guy is hilares too

#excited

ya

so HBO has picked up iannucci's "veep," wherein julia louis-dreyfus stars as a senator who becomes vice-president

looking forward to that. love armando and really like julia louis-dreyfus. also she's really good looking for a woman that must be about 50.

loved 'in the loop' when i saw it but only a recent convert to 'the thick of it' proper. 'KNOWLEDGE IS PORRIDGE'! god that made me laugh like a simpleton.

one thing I found interesting about "In the Loop" was how the American characters seemed a lot more appealing than the British ones, in that most of them seemed to be doing things for principled reasons (albeit crazy principled reasons in the case of the hand grenade guy), while the British characters were mostly stupid and just going with whatever seemed to be the flow.

think you might have been watching "ILX" by accident

haha

british characters were mostly cynical/self interested, tbh, rather than stupid

Well the Minister who goes to America and his assistant are not exactly shining lights in the brain department.

Are the new specials ever coming out or do they have to keep frantically rewriting them every time some new bombshell hits British politics?

most of them seemed to be doing things for principled reasons

doesn't gandolfini end up on the line of "and in the end i decided that ACTUALLY the MOST principled thing when you think about it is to NOT resign"

yeah what is the situash with the new episodes?

Ianucci's been making the US version instead of being in the UK writing anything AFAIK

tho he's said he's really glad abt the delay bcz it means they get to do the coalition govt now

veep starts 22 april on hbo and presumably around the same time on sky atlantic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0dMZo3l_5k