Iannucci on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

[gilbertharding]

Which, nothing necessarily wrong with that and it had some good jokes and characters. It's just disappointing that the sense of anger that I assumed was a driver of the show wasn't actually really intended at all and was read into it by malcontents like me.

What I mean is that when you watch it now, it seems clear that all the anger is about the in-fighting. It was funny at the time - less so now.

[Mr Vegetables]

I kind of think that TTOI is accurately enough observed that it doesn't really matter if the people making it aren't outraged— in a perverse way it might make it better, because it's easier to accurately observe if you've been worn down by it all?

I certainly never get the sense that TTOI thinks that any of this is all fine really? It feels like everyone just avoids looking how bad it is in the face, but all of them know deep down.

I'm comparing it in my head to W1A, which rubbed me up the wrong way with David Tennant's narration— which I remember being a bit "isn't it funny we're all a useless mess?" I don't think DOSAC finds it funny. They're just kind of trapped

[BritishHobo]

I think it still holds up, but the total futility of satire is shown in the fact that the general takeaway from the show has been "politicians are silly and it's funny for a Scottish man to swear at them", rather than "nothing constructive can get done in this country while a billionaire class of media moguls fight to maintain the status quo by reducing every complex issue to shallow gossip-level soundbites". Malcolm Tucker engineers the Iraq War, but ahh actually the real problem is Nicola Murray saying a daft thing about bat-people in a brainstorming session.

[gilbertharding]

I think it still holds up, but the total futility of satire is shown in the fact that the general takeaway from the show has been "politicians are silly and it's funny for a Scottish man to swear at them", rather than "nothing constructive can get done in this country while a billionaire class of media moguls fight to maintain the status quo by reducing every complex issue to shallow gossip-level soundbites". Malcolm Tucker engineers the Iraq War, but ahh actually the real problem is Nicola Murray saying a daft thing about bat-people in a brainstorming session.

You've hit the nail on the head for me there. It's still funny, but at the same time it makes me sad.

The sitcom In The Thick of It failed*, because Alistair Campbell still gets to go on the BBC and parade his 'mental health' problems about the place, when he should, by rights, have died painfully several years ago.


* obviously this wasn't the stated aim of the show, so it can't really be described to have 'failed', but nevertheless...

[KennyMonster]

In fairness, he's also been speaking out about child poverty and comparing the UK to a Dickens novel.

Spread lies about Corbyn/Corbyn's Labour to suit his own narrative on the state of politics so I believe that he doesn't actually give a shit about solutions to poverty, political corruption etc.

It keeps him in his job if there's no solution to the status quo and you can just shrug your shoulders at the wallies in charge doesn't it?

[superthunderstingcar]

I haven't watched TTOI in years, so forgive me if my memory is faulty, but I recall that up to the end of the third series, Malcolm Tucker was a more nuanced character than just 'Alistair Campbell with a name change and a different haircut.'

Tucker seemed to genuinely want his government to do good, but knew that standing in the way of that was (a) MPs who were out to climb the greasy pole and so put their own careers above everything else, leading to party infighting that damaged their effectiveness, and (b) a hostile media who would jump on any slip ups and loved to make them the story instead of whatever policy the government was trying to push. He shouted and swore at the politicians and journalists to try and get/keep them 'on message' but we also occasionally saw him acting differently around ordinary members of the public so that it was clear this was an act he put on.

Then in the fourth series he became 'Malcolm Tucker gets his comeuppance because Alistair Campbell never will.'

[Memorex MP3]

I find Iannucci insufferable these days but The Thick of It was largely written by Bain, Armstrong and a few others wasn't it? Succession feels far more like the Thick of It than anything Iannucci has done imo.

If you're gonna focus on Iannucci's contributions it's probably more skewed towards the casting and assembling of the production crew, which was uniformly excellent.

[Ruben Remus]

I find Iannucci insufferable these days but The Thick of It was largely written by Bain, Armstrong and a few others wasn't it? Succession feels far more like the Thick of It than anything Iannucci has done imo.

If you're gonna focus on Iannucci's contributions it's probably more skewed towards the casting and assembling of the production crew, which was uniformly excellent.

He was more heavily involved earlier on and then stepped back into more of a steward type role for the later stuff I think. The first 6 episodes with Langham and the specials were all written by Iannucci and some combination of Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche (Sam Bain was never involved). For series 3 and 4 they brought a few more guys on and each episode then had up to 7 or 8 credited writers. By series 4 Iannucci wasn't writing anything and only directed one episode, having directed all the episodes in the previous series.

I think it's fair to consider series 1 & 2 plus the specials as being creatively driven by Iannucci to a meaningful degree and the other stuff as being more of a removed writers room deal.

[Memorex MP3]

He was more heavily involved earlier on and then stepped back into more of a steward type role for the later stuff I think. The first 6 episodes with Langham and the specials were all written by Iannucci and some combination of Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche (Sam Bain was never involved). For series 3 and 4 they brought a few more guys on and each episode then had up to 7 or 8 credited writers. By series 4 Iannucci wasn't writing anything and only directed one episode, having directed all the episodes in the previous series.

I think it's fair to consider series 1 & 2 plus the specials as being creatively driven by Iannucci to a meaningful degree and the other stuff as being more of a removed writers room deal.

Ah thanks for the clear up; in that case he was heavily involved in all the good stuff (and also the worst thing if he was doing that much of the direction)