The Thick of It (Seasons 1–4)

The Thick of It (2005) is a BBC political satire series you can watch online on iFILM. Created by Armando Iannucci, it plants a camera inside a fictional British government ministry and leaves it running while everything slowly falls apart. Nobody is competent. Nobody admits it.

Peter Capaldi plays Malcolm Tucker, Director of Communications for Downing Street and the most feared man in Whitehall. Tucker doesn't manage the message — he detonates anyone who strays from it, in language that can strip paint at twenty paces. Opposite him is Hugh Abbot (Rebecca Front), the minister for social affairs, caught between looking capable for the cameras and surviving Tucker's daily calls. His aide Ollie Reeder (Chris Addison) is trying to climb the ladder while the ladder is on fire. The show ran on BBC Two and BBC Four from 2005 to 2012 across four series and a set of specials.

Iannucci later took the same formula across the Atlantic to create Veep. Tucker himself was drawn in part from Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's communications chief — a resemblance the show never quite denied. Blunt, fast, and merciless about how power actually operates. Stream The Thick of It online on iFILM.