It's been pleasing to see Armando Ianucci's polit-com promoted from BBC Four to BBC Two and reach a wider audience. Tonight, he playfully sets proceedings at another Beeb edifice, Radio 5 Live. After weeks of trading bitter blows in the press, minister Nicola Murray (the fantastic Rebecca Front) locks horns with her shadow live on Richard Bacon's late-night phone-in show. Publicity pit bull Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) listens in the relative comfort of his office until some breaking news makes life difficult for the hapless politicians. Spin doctors are soon dispatched to the studio for damage limitation - with the usual side order of swearing.

The invective weeps from the walls when two sultans of spin, Malcolm Tucker and Stewart Pearson, confront one another in a BBC radio studios corridor. The pair are doing a poor job of lurking behind the scenes as their two hapless puppets, Secretary of State Nicola Murray and her opposition counterpart Peter Mannion, unravel live on air on the Richard Bacon show. Murray's carefully nurtured agenda based on "inspiring people out of poverty" and "fourth sector pathfinders" (don't ask) tanks immediately and even the suave Mannion's "common sense checklist" is torpedoed before he even has chance to get going. Bacon (yes, it really is him) more than holds his own as his studio is invaded by shrieking apparatchiks and the chaos becomes almost Biblical - apart from the swearing, of course, which is as bracing and brilliant as a meteor shower. Along the way there are neat barbs aimed at people who send witless texts to radio shows, and Malcolm receives an offensive birthday cake.

The Thick of It: series three, episode five

Rival spin doctors Malcolm Tucker and Stewart Pearson go head to head - and find they have a lot in common.

According to Mark Lawson, a recent meeting between top-level BBC talent and execs saw the former bemoaning the corporation's current paranoia about any joke that the Daily Haters might find offensive, and arguing that this was stifling comedy. The suits apparently hit back by saying, "How can you say we are not risk-taking when The Thick Of It is on - and on Saturday nights, no less?" To tvBite's little mind, this is to miss the point: TTOI is still very good, but is now just a one-man turn. No matter how brilliantly barked the sweary similes, is a parody of a Labour spin-doctor who quit six years ago really pushing back the boundaries of comedy and taste? Not hating on the show, but if the execs are patting themselves on the back for how cutting-edge the series is, then that's evidence of a big problem.

A superb episode of Armando Iannucci's effortless political satire, as Nicola Murray and her opposition counterpart, Peter Mannion, appear on Richard Bacon's radio show. And the results are, as you'd expect, not pretty. But it's the encounter behind the scenes between Malcolm Tucker and Mannion's own wizard of spin, Stewart Pearson, where the real thrust of this episode lies. It's like the meeting of two powerful Jedi. Or something.

Richard Bacon on being in The Thick of It

Richard Bacon describes what it was like to take part in an episode of The Thick Of It.

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Den Of Geek review of episode 3.4

Malcolm Tucker's finest diatribe of the series to date is one of the many highlights of the latest episode of The Thick Of It...

Good news: tonight sees the return of Roger Allam as laconic Tory frontbencher Peter Mannion. Mannion's that rare creature - a screen Tory who isn't a frothing monster or a cad. Instead he radiates disdain for the political process, and in particular for his own ludicrous spin maestro Stewart Pearson, a cant-filled creep forever wanting to "take a turn on the ideas carousel" or "imagineer a narrative". Mannion and his team are due at the ministry for a routine visit just as news leaks of problems in Secretary of State Nicola Murray's private life: her daughter is in trouble at school. As always, the rumours spiral into a vicious storm of invective and farce.

The Thick of It: series three, episode 4

The opposition return - and Tucker is put to shame by the opposition spin doctor. But not in the swearing stakes, obviously.