Those in the know Loop the Loop

My most cherished childhood TV watching experience (we all have one), was sitting with my Dad in front of the fire chuckling away at Sir Humphrey Appleby's scheming antics in Yes Minister*. Not that I actually understood any of the jokes of course - they all went completely over my head - but it exposed me to the existence of this thing called 'politics', which to my childish mind seemed as though it was generally taken much more seriously by lots of men in suits than was actually warranted.

It's a principle which has held out well of the intervening years. The BBC certainly seems to think so. In 2005 they premiered the first season of The Thick Of It, a satirical political comedy that self-consciously sought to apply the Yes Minister model to Blair's New Labour. The results were superb, creator Armando Iannucci and his crack team of writing ninjas producing scripts that combined farcical plotlines that were sadly all too believeable**, incisive and strangely affecting examinations of moral weakness, all propelled along by a script that crackled with colourful use of the language.

With In The Loop, the world of The Thick Of It has hit the big screen, Iannucci and Co. using the larger form to launch an all out attack on the confusion, false evidence, war-mongering and out-right lies that led to the US led invasion of Iraq. In a courageous but ill-advised moment of expansiveness, fretful British MP Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) tells a Radio 4 interviewer that war in the Middle East is 'unforseeable'.

He is immediately swooped upon by the PM's permanently belligerent, overbearing enforcer Malcolm Tucker (played with ferocious relish by Peter Capaldi), who blasts him for not towing the company... sorry, government's line. Things become more complicated quite quickly however after a group of visiting American officials latch onto Foster's gaffe, drawing the hapless MP into a behind the scenes Anglo-American tug of war.

Hollander is by turns hilarious and pathetic as Foster, a basically good but ineffectual man, distracted by polls, fixated on appearances and uncaring about his own constituents. In one wonderful running gag Foster is hectored by an angry council flat dweller whose garden wall is falling down, New Labour having long since reached the point of being unable to fulfil basic functions of government, let alone deliver on the lofty promises that got it elected. As Foster dithers along, indecisiveness veers into moral equivocation, before morphing into actual support for the war, the bumbling spinelessness of people like him allowing Bush and Blair to charge ahead.

Capaldi meanwhile excels as the Alaistar Campbell caricature Tucker, who dominates his every scene with volatile displays of the labour machine's ugly face, his performance combining the political wheedling of Sir Humphrey with a gutter-whore's tongue, straight from the streets of Glasgow. Mention should also go to Chris Addison as Foster's rather gormless aide Toby and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano himself) as the practical and hardheaded anti-war US General Miller.

In The Loop goes far beyond its shared preoccupations with the BBC classic however. Sure there is a similar fascination with governmental procedure, low level nod-and-a-wink corruption, and pop cultural minitae. At the same time the film is much more completely an ensemble effort, reliant on the largely brilliant performances of a large professional cast to immerse the viewer in the culture of those 'in the know', the underlings in a political machine rolling unstoppably towards war.

The film is perhaps limited by the Iannucci's apparent inability to follow the chain of command beyond a certain level, or interrogate the liaisons between the upper echelon of the political establishment and the dominant commercial interests that ultimately drove the push for war. This is a quibble though when weighed against the searing insights that fly out of every scene. In The Loop is a powerful piece of satire - although the fact that it contains the brilliantly creative uses of swearing this side of The Wire is enough reason to see it in itself.


Happy things for happy people: The Lovetones have started work on an as yet unnamed 5th album; the trailer for new Blair Witch Project ripoff Paranormal Activity must be seen to believed. Not because it looks like it'll be any good of course, but because it's hilarious; even better is this little blast from the past.


* also high on the list was Get Smart, for which Dad would literally speed home to catch at 5.30 after he finished work. It was serious business - I think that there were times when he wished that I was the one in the Cone of Silence.
** see the MP expense account scandal that has all but obliterated the Brown government.