Gigglebox Weekly #57 – The Thick Of It

Gigglebox Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week sees return of a sitcom that’s been in hibernation since 2009. Much has changed since the last series of the political sitcom The Thick of It, not least a change in government…

As a result, the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship’s now being run by Peter Mannion MP (who is clearly a Conservative, but they never refer to actual political parties during the series), with his junior minister Fergus Williams (clearly a Lib Dem in everything except name).

In this first episode the department is launching a new digital scheme developed by the juniors, but spin doctor Stewart Pearson (the fluffier Malcolm Tucker) has announced that the PM wants Mannion to announce the deal, despite him knowing nothing about computers. Not surprisingly the announcement goes badly with just about everyone, including the public…

I really enjoyed the opening episode. There were some great lines from Will Smith – although given that Smith wrote this episode perhaps it’s not that surprising – and my favourite moment arrived when Mannion’s team were constantly trying to explain technology to him, in particular the difference between download and uploading.

While it’s good, though, I can’t help but feel that it’s not ‘great’ for the simple reason that I missed Malcolm Tucker. The Thick of It’s creator, Armando Iannucci, has said that the coalition is “too posh to swear”, which is annoying because the swearing is often the funniest bit of the show. Luckily, Tucker returns in the next episode about the opposition, so you really can’t form a true opinion of this new series until then.