Armando Ianucci's The Thick of It

k-punk

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
... which has just started a new series on BBC4, is everything that the dreadful Blunkett play failed to be. Where the Blunkett play was comforting (especially to most of those it was supposedly satirising), The Thick of It is bleakly unsettling. The standard description (The Office + Yes Minister) gives a broad impression of the series, but The Thick of It is much more unremittingly savage than either. The baboonish territorial aggression and Hobbesian one-upmanship are perhaps the closest recent British 'entertainment' has come to the Alec Baldwyn character in Glengarry Glen Ross... all of which makes me wonder why it is that British TV comedy seems to have a much better handle on contemporary reality than does TV drama, which is marooned in a mire of star-led MOR or glossed-up to the nines in yet another costume effort...
 
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blunt

shot by both sides
k-punk said:
[...] everything that the dreadful Blunkett play failed to be. Where the Blunkett play was comforting (especially to most of those it was supposedly satirising) [...]
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Crikey! Did you really think so? I thought it was very funny wher I caught it last night, and pretty brutal. Bernard Hill played him like an evil idiot savant, which I think is fairly spot on. Every time he did that laugh I found myself cringing.

BUT - I am excited to see "The Thick Of It" - I've heard nothing but good things about it, but will just have to wait till it comes on Peasantvision. Ianuuci and Chris Langham are both terrific.
 
k-punk

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
Yeh, I started a thread on the Blunkett play here ....

I ended up feeling sympathetic to Blunkett, which can't have been the point... plus Campbell must love his depiction as smooth, calculating behind-the-scenes Machiavell... (only Kimberly Quinn could really be offended, but the misogynistic caricature of her was so OTT that it could hardly have been unsettling)... whereas the Peter Capaldi monster in The Thick of It is genuinely abhorrent... oozing the charisma of the militantly amoral... this is a view of the powers-that-be which seems to give us a glimpse behind the media curtain.. all A Very Social Secretary gave us was a dance of already-existing media images...
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
When is 'The Thick of It' coming to serf TV? Can't wait.

I've always thought that Ianucci's solo series was one of the most overlooked comedy shows of recent years - endlessly inventive, and a real break from the norm. Must check if it's available on DVD...

Then of course there's the immortal Morris/Ianucci post 9/11 satire from the Observer in March 2002.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
spackb0y said:
I forgot about that... is it online anywhere?
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Certainly is - search on Guardian archive for somethiung like 'morris ianucci six months 9/11'. Was def in March 2002, so you should find it easily.
 
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domtyler

Teasmaid
I was lucky enough to get to photograph behind the scenes while they were filming the first Thick of its and knew straightaway it would be very funny. During breaks in filming the crew would sit around reading the script with tears of laughter running down their cheeks. It's almost all filmed in a dissused office in North London and kept very fluid by using two cameras for everything and shooting in sequence.

Seem to remember lots of comments about the wavey camera causing seasickness in viewers, never bothered me much but I think the more recent episodes are a little more static.
 
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