Malcolm Tucker to return as The Thick Of It takes a new direction

The makers of The Thick of It enlist their own swearing consultant to produce spin doctor Malcolm Tucker's profanities (BBC)

Foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker is returning to television in a new series of The Thick Of It - and this time he is in opposition.

The character, played by Peter Capaldi and famous for terrorising Whitehall with his oath-laden outbursts, will be joined by regulars including Nicola Murray MP, played by Rebecca Front.

Roger Allam also returns as Peter Mannion MP, coping with life as a minister in a new coalition government, and his new coalition partner Fergus Williams MP, played by Spooks star Geoffrey Streatfeild.

The show's creator Armando Iannucci said: "This series takes The Thick Of It into exciting and uncharted territory: a new coalition government, and Malcolm and Nicola fretting in the wings. For the first time too a storyline takes us all the way through the series right to the bitter, bitter end, with government and opposition convulsed in an incident that questions every political convention imaginable, but in a funny way."

The makers of show enlist their own swearing consultant to produce Tucker's notorious profanities.

Speaking to The Independent in June, Iannucci remarked: "I don't want to give too much away but Malcolm Tucker and Nicola Murray are in opposition. Peter Mannion [Roger Allam] and his team are in government, Terri [Joanna Scanlan] – she's a civil servant, so she's still at DoSAC [the fictional Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship]."

"Peter, as a junior minister, has someone from another party who's in coalition [with him], who's desperately trying to have just one day when he can say, 'It was our idea... we got that through.'"

The show, made up of seven 30-minute episodes, will air this autumn on BBC Two.

Iannucci's new comedy, Veep, is another a political drama but for American audiences. Staring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Vice President Selina Meyer, it has received mixed reviews since airing on Sky Atlantic in June.

PA