Oh, how you have been missed. The most brutal, brilliant, misanthropic character probably ever to grace our small screens, last night’s return of Armando Ianuuci’s “The Thick of It” to mainstream BBC, should have got more column inches than it did. But for those of us in the know, the return of Peter Capaldi in a role he will never better as the spin doctor from hell, Malcolm Tucker, was comedy brilliance and worth the licence fee alone.
Last night’s series opener focussed on Tucker’s attempts to control the media on cabinet reshuffle day, an opening five minute salvo that included the some of the best swearing I have ever heard on television. Yes, I know that swearing is not always big or clever but , believe me, last night it was big, clever and side-splittingly hilarious.
There are many things that are brilliant about The Thick of It: the writing is exemplary, the direction wonderful, the acting peerless. For me though, it is the dialogue that makes this show stand head and shoulders above others. If last nights episode was anything to go by, then Saturday night has just become “Malcolm” night.
