TV Blog: The best (and worst) of the week's telly

It would be unfair to say that all good British satire in the last fifteen years has been produced by Armando Iannucci. There is at least 3% untouched by him. Such is the quality of output from the producer/writer behind The Day Today, Alan Partridge and The Saturday Night Armistice, that you need to pay attention when I say that recent series of The Thick of It (BBC2, Saturday) is his best work to date. 

A semi-improvised, fly on the wall style show, The Thick of It is the anti-West Wing set in a fictional but oh-so plausible government department where ministers and civil servants are daily bullied into lying and backtracking by Peter Capaldi’s dead eyed, foul mouthed Alastair Campbell alike. Profane, frenzied and very, very funny it attacks the culture of spin and bluffing across the political spectrum while only feeling removed from reality by degrees. Your enjoyment will depend on how well you know your politics but this is extremely timely stuff, eerily echoing the real world events of New Labour’s death throws. 

While never faltering in the sitcom stakes, what is most impressive about the show is how it also functions as a drama; sticking the knife into government blunders and media nonsense but at the same time exploring the toll taken on those who are constantly forced to sacrifice their family life and their convictions for a greater good that never seems to arrive. Several episodes of the latest run delivered emotional punches every bit as big as their laughs and while the final part didn’t quite live up to the preceding episodes, this was only because the bar had been set sky high. 

The whole of the third series is still available to watch on the BBC iplayer for the next few days. Watch it while you can.