Star of British TV satire set to conquer America

Armando Iannucci, creator of the BBC's acclaimed The Thick of It, heads a record number of British entries at the Sundance film festival with a new political comedy featuring the star of The Sopranos.

Armando's Loop gets Sundance premiere

Armando Iannucci's movie spin-off from The Thick of It is receive its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival next month. In The Loop - which stars James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Peter Capaldi, and Steve Coogan - will have its first public screening on January 22.

The regular holiday replacement for The News Quiz/The Now Show returns as Armando Iannucci presents his version of a topical news quiz. It has no news, no rules and no quiz!

With the help of some itinerant humorists, the news is dissected and generally piffled around with, and each programme is recorded close to transmission. So although the line-up of subjects is yet to be finalised, it would take an idiot not to know that the Olympics will feature large, as will 'staycations' - the awfully named trend to holiday in the UK - and the US presidential shenanigans.

Armando Iannucci's radio show is a bit of a teeth-clencher... let's examine the components.

It's a sort of chat show, with three guests, except they aren't allowed to chat. They are there to make jokes on topics, presumably of which they have had notice, chosen to reflect the week's events. On Friday these included national holidays (Get Carter Day, suggested Will Smith, to rare studio audience silence), unlikely headlines (E.coli has entered the Big Brother house, offered Iannucci), David Cameron choosing a Benny Hill song on Desert Island Discs (here Natalie Haynes began talking, bafflingly, about shoes), who in public life you would like to kill and why (Clive Anderson pointed out that killing people is wrong, but Will Smith insisted that he still wants to kill Alan Rothwell for stealing his Action Man, the one with a parachute).

Iannucci joined in competitively and did solo riffs on why he hates Apple (his iPod froze) and his local gym. Croquet figured largely, of course, so largely that on Saturday, after the repeat, the weatherman said it would be a wonderful afternoon for it if the subject hadn't already been malleted to death.

Could it be that none of Iannucci's guests had spent enough time thinking what to say? Is it possible that Iannucci himself, back in 1990, when he was putting together the genuinely revolutionary On the Hour (and sweeping aside the News Quiz team waiting to get into the studio after him), would have allowed this show on air? I doubt it.

I think he's bored with the news and with radio. He's exhausted. He's had an exceptionally busy and productive year. Another, during which he will also set up the BBC's new comedy workshop, lies ahead. He has given energy and intelligence to some truly major work. Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive is, alas, the dregs.

Cult corner

It's filmed in a blanched-out sequence of static, grainy shots that trap you into thinking you're about to get some grim kitchen-sink piece of social commentary. In fact, what you get is a joyously escalating series of warm and hilarious plots prompted by the inconsequential.