Writer and director Armando Iannucci, 58, was born in Glasgow to Scottish-Italian parents. He studied philosophy and English before abandoning his doctorate at Oxford to pursue a comedy career. His Radio 4 news spoof with Chris Morris, On the Hour, transferred to TV as The Day Today. Now a leading figure in British comedy, his creations include the Bafta-winning political comedy The Thick of It, its Emmy-winning US equivalent, Veep, and the films The Death of Stalin and The Personal History of David Copperfield. Iannucci’s sci-fi sitcom Avenue 5 is about to return for a second series.
The Day Today and The Thick of It often seem prophetic. Do you ever look at current affairs and think, “That’s familiar”?
Yes, but if you go back and look at Yes, Minister, it’s the same old stories: Europe, cuts, fights with the Treasury. These things come back around. Fundamentally, it’s people spending so much time thinking about how they’re going to gain power that they haven’t thought about what to do when they have it. They end up falling back on their set of beliefs from 20 years ago when they first went into politics, not realising the world’s changed and they’re desperately out of date.
