The Thick of It is a sharply acted political comedy that makes ministerial chaos both funny and unpleasant. Peter Capaldi deserves the attention, though the ensemble supplies the variety that its relentless abuse sometimes lacks.
The Thick of It treats ministerial chaos as a working environment that everyone has learnt to tolerate. Armando Iannucci and his fellow writers find comedy in people trying to conduct government business under the attentions of a foul-mouthed enforcer. It is a sharply written comedy with an excellent ensemble, and we recommend it. The Whitehall setting supplies a ready target, but the pressure becomes particularly uncomfortable when it starts to resemble an ordinary day at work.
Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Jesse Armstrong and Ian Martin are among the writers, and the dialogue has the confidence to sound untidy. The scripts leave room for improvisation, allowing the performers to make the confusion feel unplanned. That looseness works particularly well in a satire about spin, where even a carefully chosen phrase can get its speaker into trouble. The abuse is skilfully written, though the more rewarding comedy comes from the difficulty of getting through an exchange without making matters worse.
Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker is the obvious attraction, and he earns the attention. We laughed at his abuse and disliked how readily we had joined in. Capaldi makes the enforcer’s foul language funny without making his presence comfortable; the fear is as important as the phrasing. His performance gives the ministerial panic a credible cause, so the swearing does not become merely a competition to find another offensive word.
Chris Langham makes Hugh Abbot’s discomfort funny without appearing to have prepared a joke. Rebecca Front brings enough feeling to Nicola Murray for the pressure to hurt, while Chris Addison’s Olly Reeder invites considerably less sympathy. Joanna Scanlan makes Terri Coverley’s restraint funny in its own right, and James Smith gives Glenn Cullen’s indignation some weight. Roger Allam’s Peter Mannion offers a welcome change of pace from the panic. Their reactions help the insults register as something being done to people, which matters in a programme so ready to let us enjoy them.
The directors include Iannucci, Becky Martin and Natalie Bailey, and the fly-on-the-wall approach suits people who have little chance to compose themselves. The apparent informality makes the writing’s precision less conspicuous, so a prepared humiliation can feel as if it has happened by accident. It also keeps the ensemble important: our interest need not stop with whoever has the sharpest line. The ministerial disorder feels credible because the performances and the observational style agree about how little dignity these exchanges should have.
The weakness is repetition. Once verbal punishment becomes the expected outcome, some of the surprise goes, and Tucker can make the surrounding people seem less interesting than they are. The comparison with Yes Minister is useful as a guide to the subject, but it should not suggest an evening of comfortable political amusement. This programme’s aggression can become wearing, and there are stretches when we want more variation in the pressure rather than another demonstration of how well Capaldi can apply it.
There is no need to be fluent in Whitehall procedure to recognise the misery of being answerable to somebody like Tucker. An appetite for cruel comedy matters more, along with a tolerance for language that earns the 18 certificate. Give it half an hour, but perhaps not immediately after a difficult day at the office.
