The Thick Of It

Chris Addison on Veep, the US cousin of The Thick of It

Working as a director on Sky Atlantic's Veep has made Chris Addison, star of The Thick of It, view US television with new eyes.

The last full series of Armando Iannucci's blistering satire brought us a coalition government, carrying an innefectual junior partner and fighting a weak, disorganised opposition. But aside from the contemporary echoes, the show stuck to what's been its central point all along: that so much modern politics is a series of PR stunts and botches, conceived not to make the world better but to get or keep power. The hour-long inquiry episode was riveting, Roger Allam shone as the newly empowered (in theory) Peter Mannion, and Peter Capaldi's fearsome spin doctor Malcolm Tucker bowed out in a final episode to rank with any sitcom finale.

The Thick of It: the TV programme of 2012

The satire came to a glorious climax, and went from being cathartic to prophetic.

Knowing when to end a show is one of the most difficult things for TV writers and stars, but Armando Iannucci got it just right with this fourth and final series of The Thick Of It.

The political satire remained razor sharp, Malcolm Tucker remains one of the most incredible TV creations of all time ("You don't know Jackie f***ing Chan about me") and the penultimate Goolding Inquiry episode - which couldn't have been any more timely - was a brave and bold twist to the show's magic formula, which paid off brilliantly.

We'll keep our fingers crossed that Tucker may return for one (or two) final specials in years to come, but if this really is the end, then what a stunning way to bow out.

Peter Capaldi: Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie love TTOI

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie love spin doctor Malcolm Tucker's four-letter rants in The Thick Of It, says Peter Capaldi.

Omnishambles: my unlikely accolade

I never thought my late tweak to the script of The Thick of It would catch on. But the word has mutated omnieverywhere.

Omnishambles gets OED word of the year award

The Thick Of It's 'omnishambles' word has been awarded word of the year status by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Sadly it was the final episode of possibly the last ever series of The Thick of It (Saturday, BBC Two). After a strange interlude in which the regular characters went before a select committee - a scenario which they didn't really play for laughs - it was back to the verbal gymnastics we know and love. Iannucci has a gift for putting into Malcolm Tucker's mouth similes and metaphors of great originality, ones which manage to shock and amuse at the same time.

It looks like Malcolm is going to prison for perjury, with Ollie Reeder, the young pretender, taking over his throne. The joke was that Tucker couldn't get arrested, literally, because every police station he reported to had a backlog due to Home Office incompetence.

Tucker had planned an exit for himself that would be worthy of a Shakespearean tragic hero, but things didn't quite go his way. Standing on the steps of a police station about to address a waiting mob of journalists you expected him to explode. Instead, more poignantly, he hesitated and said: "It doesn't matter."

So farewell then to BBC2's The Thick Of It. And a special '****ety-bye' to Peter Capaldi's Malcolm Tucker. We will probably never see their like on TV again.

If I was being picky I might say I would have preferred it if Tucker had bowed out with the penultimate episode's withering government inquiry speech. But now is not the time for being picky. Now is the time to order the box set.

Armando Iannucci's Thick of It bows out with 750,000

The Thick of It's last ever episode drew a fairly modest audience on Saturday night, early data shows.