"The Thick Of It" makes a welcome return

It is unlikely that there will be a more keenly anticipated TV show on the BarneyRuddlecorder this year than the new 1-hour special of The Thick Of It. For the benefit of those completely out of touch with UK political comedy, The Thick Of It is an Armando Ianucci-penned cross between Yes Minister and The Office which manages to be at least as funny as, and probably better than either of, those classics. In the original 6-part series broadcast in 2005, Chris Langham (who starred in the late 90s comedy classic People Like Us, a direct antecedent of The Office's fly-on-the-idiots'-wall approach) plays the bumbling, mediocre "Minister for Social Affairs", Hugh Abbot. Abbot is a very similar character to Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister and similarly amusing, but rather than being manipulated by Sir Humphrey-style civil service mandarins, he is bullied, put through the grinder and generally f***ed over by Number 10 spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (played absolutely to perfection by Peter Capaldi). In Tucker, Armando Iannuci captures the essence of New Labour's political machinery. Abbot's own special advisers are also hilariously inept, in particular the very wet behind the ears Ollie Reeder (played by Chris Addison) who is a dead ringer for the kind of wide-eyed "Joe 90" know-it-all that think tanks like ippr and Demos leave standing on the doorstep in specially sized green bins every week to be recycled into special adviser jobs in various government departments.

The new special presents some changes to the format: Chris Langham is gone (due to currently being in the dock on charges of viewing child porn), his place being taken by deputising junior minister Ben Swain (Justin Edwards) who believes he has a clue, but like many of us, doesn't. This results in a particularly hilarious sequence where Swain is interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight on immigration policy. The impending change of Prime Minister is centre stage in people's minds, with Tucker and the other special advisers under no illusions that the "nutters" (i.e. Brownites) who are about to come to power will nail him first chance they get. But most excitingly the opposition gets featured for the first time, as much of the show follows the fortunes of the shadow minister for social affairs, Peter Mannion (played by Roger Allam) who is basically a send-up of David Davis; a hard-line conservative who stood against "JB" (i.e. Dave Cameron) for the leadership but lost, so he has now been given a front-line brief where he has to spout bollocks about stuff he doesn't believe in for one second but it's either that or get fired. It's hilarious and so close to reality that casual viewers tuning in during one of these sections may well have believed they were watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary about an actual Tory politician. Equally good is the opposition PR guru who gets all the politicians to dress 'smart casual' - this is a direct rip of Steve Hilton, who advises Cameron, and again it's brilliantly done.

I have to admit, before viewing this I was worried about whether The Thick Of It would be able to survive Chris Langham's exodus, but it seems to have done so quite brilliantly. Now all we need is a Tory win in 2009 and the coast would be clear for a third series looking at what happens to the opposition guys once they get into government; which isn't a good enough reason by itself to vote Tory, but it might at least provide some consolation. The special is repeated on Wednesday 10th Jan at 10pm on BBC4; warmly recommended if you missed it first time round.