The Thousands

In the Loop is based on the British political satire The Thick Of It, which has been dubbed the new Yes, Minister. But to paraphrase one character, In The Loop makes Yes, Minister “look like Angela Lansbury”. The dialogue crackles with witty one-liners, pop-culture references and copious amounts of furious, creative swearing.

Most of the swearing comes from Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), the Machiavellian Scottish communications chief for Downing Street who runs about bullying everyone. His latest target: hapless junior minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), who’s blundered into commenting on a proposed Middle Eastern war. With his Hugh Grant-esque aide Toby Wright (Chris Addison), Simon’s drawn into a political gambit by Americans General Miller (James Gandolfini) and Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy), whose anti-war positioning paper PWIP-PIP (“Who wrote that, Charles Dickens?” scoffs one character) was compiled by Karen’s aide – and Toby’s uni crush – Liza Weld (Anna Chlumsky).**The ensuing antics are all vastly enjoyable. At the height of Barack Obama’s presidential honeymoon this might’ve seemed like an exorcism of Bush/Blair-era demons, but given the failure of the recent Copenhagen climate talks, In The Loop‘s real politik satire feels uncomfortably dark.