Armando Iannucci 2

You collaborate a lot with other people, rather than working on your own. Why is that?

I have to confess part of it is displacement activity, because fundamentally it's an unhappy experience isn't it, writing? It's boring and painful. So sitting in a room with other people and making each other laugh is clearly much more interesting. And I like the fact that out of that you can generate material. Now that doesn't mean to say that's the work done. We do generate material like that, but then we have to go away and shape it and structure it and discipline it.

Are there ever disagreements about where you would go with something?

When we were writing Partridge there were always three of us. With Knowing Me Knowing You it was always me and Steve and Patrick Marber. And then once he became a very busy playwright he couldn't do I'm Alan Partridge so Peter Baynham joined. So there was always three of us. When there's two of you there's always a bit of a tussle. But when there's three of you it just needs two people to be for something, for that third person to think "Oh well if two of them think it's fine let's go with it and see what happens."

And it also meant that we could split off. I was also producing it, so if I was out location scouting there were always two people there. Or if Steve was busy doing something else there were still two people in the room to write.

How did you come to create The Thick of It?

I read about how New Labour operated - Alastair Campbell and the other spin doctors there, and how with each of their attempts to manage the media they only made things worse - and I just thought: there's a farce in there. Fundamentally there's a silly story about people trying to stop something from happening by doing something that only makes that thing happen much more publicly.

Also there's something funny about the way you're very keen to get a certain message across but you happen to say something at the end and it's that that appears on the front pages the next day. I just find that funny because it's absurd and it's pointless in a way.

I was also asked by the BBC to do a documentary about Yes Minister, which I was always a big fan of, and I sat and watched them and they're so elegantly written. There’s real intelligence to them. And yet these were things that were on primetime BBC One.

I've always felt you must never underestimate the intelligence of the audience. If you start writing down to the lowest common denominator people see that and you must always write for what makes you laugh rather than what you think will make other people laugh. Because the moment you start writing not through conviction but through strategy I think it will show.

What was interesting about Yes Minister was it was really the very first time that the public had an insight into how government worked. And I just thought: we don't have that.

What inspired The Thick of It? Spin or politics?

It was inspired by truth. I had various consultants advising on it to get the accuracy. And I kept saying to them it's not a documentary. But I want to know when the minister comes in what time does he come in and who's carrying his bags and if a call comes through from the editor of the Daily Mail who takes the call, that sort of thing.

I was always a big fan of the West Wing and what I liked about it was a sense of getting insight into what life must be like in the White House. There were former presidential speech writers there who were programme consultants. And I liked that. With the West Wing there might be moments of dialogue where you've no idea what they're talking about, but it doesn't matter. So Josh comes in and he goes "The FC has gone up to Sannet but nobody on the K9 committee wants to forward it until the DWI draft is pushed through Congress." And you think: It doesn't matter that I don't know what he's talking about. All I need to know is he's annoyed.

And I thought with The Thick Of It if we get the accuracy and the language right it'll give us the skeleton on which we can then hang the emotions of that scene.

I've heard In The Loop described as both inspired by and a spin off from The Thick Of It. Which is it?

It’s in the style of The Thick Of It. Because of the big screen it’s less wobbly camera work but still fluid. I'm still looking for naturalistic performances, but I wanted a completely new ministry. I wanted one with an international outlook. I also wanted to park The Thick Of It and know that I could return to it and it could still exist as a TV project.

How did you do your research?

A Washington insider in America fixed me up with drinks and dinners and lunches and meetings with staffers at the Senate, people who worked at the State Department, ex White House people, someone from the CIA, Pentagon people, and the United Nations people. And I had certain things I wanted to ask them about, but I asked them also about the dull stuff cos I wanted to get the accuracy, as well as the stories.

I'm up front saying this is entertainment. There was nothing surreptitious. And you find in these fairly, highly enclosed workspaces where they're dealing with the same people all the time and it's pretty full on, they're just relieved to kind of offload really.

There's also part of them quite enjoys being reminded of how important they are. James Gandolfini rang up and said "Can I come to the Pentagon?" And of course being James Gandolfini they said yes and he took various generals out and he had his hair cut at the Pentagon barber so he could have a genuine cut.

There is a scene where Malcolm says "Have you ever killed anyone?" So James wanted to know, and he asked each general: "Have you ever killed anyone?" And he said it was very funny cos the reactions were all "Have I ever killed anyone? Urm... er, Bob, have I ever killed anyone? Yes. Yes I've killed someone."

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