Comedy, Satire and Power
Comedy is a serious business, and in the business there’s none more serious than Armando Iannucci. Writer, director, satirist, Iannucci is the acclaimed creator of The Thick of It, Director of Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and the massive comedy brain behind the multi award-winning Veep. Having made a name for himself in comedy, he’s recently turned his gaze to political systems, collaborating with the New Statesman's Anoosh Chakelian on the podcast Westminster Reimagined.
Over the last few years, Homerton has welcomed Diane Abbott, Theresa May, John McDonnell, Rev Al Sharpton and Rev Jesse Jackson – a bevy of big names from the world of politics. In the interests of balance, Homerton’s Politics Society and Homerton College Changemakers hosted Iannucci, a big name from the world of satire.
Robin Bunce and Armando Iannuccci
Iannucci’s career is an interesting one. Having started a doctorate in English Literature at Oxford in the early nineties, he chose to pursue a career in comedy. His breakthrough came in BBC Radio’s On the Hour, a spoof news show co-written with the likes of Chris Morris, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. Iannucci began working in television in the mid-nineties, collaborating with Steve Coogan on various iterations of Alan Partridge; the mind-bending mockumentary Time Trumpet; and Veep which brought Iannucci together with the legendary Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
During our discussion, Iannucci referenced The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the “show that made me think, oh my God, you can do comedy that isn’t just jokes. Comedy can be about ideas and narrative, it can be complex.” The reference to Hitchhiker’s explains a great deal, including Iannucci's love for radio, and the meta element in his comedy. Douglas Adams’ work was rooted in meta science-fiction: science-fiction which sent up the genre’s conventions. Similarly, as Ken Theft, one of his early stand-up characters, Iannucci made comedy about comedy - jokes about feedlines and punchlines; On the Hour mocked the clichés of broadcast news; and Knowing Me, Knowing You sent up the conventions of the chat show. Iannucci's satire does something similar. It reflects his desire to understand how things work, and to make comedy about the ways in which systems fail.
Armando Iannuccci, Homerton College
In one sense, Iannucci’s turn to satire, which took place in the mid noughties, reflected a long-held interest. “Even as a kid”, he reflected, “I was always fascinated by politics - the drama of it.” His early interest was piqued by the 1982 Glasgow Hillhead by-election. The election, which took place in Iannucci’s corner of Glasgow, established the newly formed SDP as a force to be reckoned with in British politics, and national figures such as Shirley Williams and Tony Benn flocked to the area creating a political carnival that he likened to “Glastonbury in suits.”
However, in another sense Iannucci’s turn to politics came out of the specific circumstances of the early 2000s. “The galvanising moment” he recalls “was the invasion of Iraq.” Iannucci wanted to understand why Britain’s political system had generated such a palpably dreadful outcome. The consequence was The Thick of It, a show that exposed the baleful influence of the 24-hour news cycle, and the power of unelected special advisors.
Strangely, Malcolm Tucker, the manic, foul-mouthed spin doctor played by Peter Capaldi, is something of an inspiration for the current generation of Politics undergrads. And it’s not just students, Chris Addison, who played Tucker’s sidekick Ollie Reeder, has recently stated that “the longer life goes on the more I understand Malcolm Tucker’s point of view. Ultimately, what he was trying to do was make it all work properly.” Even Alistair Campbell has confessed a certain admiration for Tucker, a working-class Scotsman who keeps the private school boys at the top of government in order. Should we regard Tucker as a hero?
Iannucci's response was unequivocal: “he’s not the hero, he is part of the problem. If you boil any episode of The Thick of It down to its bare bones, it’s the minister has done something wrong, but something minor. They are worried it will get out. Malcolm comes in to try and sort it. He makes it worse, then leaves - blaming the minister.” And there’s no getting away from the fact that Tucker is a bully.
It’s sometimes said that satire is reactionary: laughter diffuses the indignation and anger which could lead to change, and therefore supports the status quo. My feeling, however, is that comedy has a great deal of progressive potential. Political speech writer and humourist Patrick Ross argues that one of the key principles of comedy is to put into words something that everyone is thinking, but no one has actually said. Comedy, then, can play a key role in articulating subversive truths. Equally, Darcus Howe, the celebrated campaigner for Black liberation in Britain, regularly used humour. Howe was willing to fight racism by all necessary means. Indeed, like music, comedy has often given voice to minority communities. That was true of the likes of Dick Gregory in the civil rights era, and its true of queer comedians like Cole Escola and Patti Harrison today. By exposing the dysfunction at the heart of contemporary politics Iannucci’s satire has been a force for good. That’s the power of his comedy.
Robin Bunce, Armando Iannucci and Lord Simon Woolley
