Armando Iannucci

Armando Giovanni Iannucci OBE (/jəˈni/; born 28 November 1963) is a Scottish satirist,[1] writer, director, and radio producer. Born in Glasgow to Italian parents, Iannucci studied at the University of Glasgow followed by the University of Oxford. Starting on BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4, his early work with Chris Morris on the radio series On the Hour transferred to television as The Day Today. A character from this series, Alan Partridge, co-created by Iannucci, went on to feature in a number of Iannucci's television and radio programmes, including Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge. Iannucci also fronted the satirical Armistice review shows and in 2001 created his most personal work, The Armando Iannucci Shows, for Channel 4.[2]

Armando Iannucci

OBE
Iannucci in 2016
Born
Armando Giovanni Iannucci

(1963-11-28) 28 November 1963
Glasgow, Scotland
Alma materUniversity of Glasgow
University College, Oxford
Spouse(s)
Rachel Jones
(m. 1990)
Children3
Comedy career
MediumTelevision, film, radio, stand up comedy
Years active1990–present
GenresSitcom, political satire

Moving back to the BBC in 2005, Iannucci created the political sitcom The Thick of It and the spoof documentary Time Trumpet in 2006.[2] Winning funding from the UK Film Council, in 2009 he directed a critically acclaimed feature film, In the Loop, featuring characters from The Thick of It. As a result of these works, he has been described by The Daily Telegraph as "the hardman of political satire".[3] Other works during this period include an operetta libretto, Skin Deep, and his radio series Charm Offensive. Iannucci created the HBO political satire Veep, and was its showrunner for four seasons from 2012 to 2015. For his work on Veep he won two Emmys in 2015, Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. He followed this with the feature films The Death of Stalin in 2017 and The Personal History of David Copperfield, a 2019 adaptation of the novel David Copperfield. In 2020, he created the comedy series Avenue 5 on HBO.

Early life

Iannucci was born in Glasgow. His father, also called Armando, was from Naples, while his mother was born in Glasgow to an Italian family.[4] Before emigrating, Iannucci's father wrote for an anti-fascist newspaper as a teenager and joined the Italian partisans at 17.[5][6] He came to Scotland in 1950 and ran a pizza factory in Springburn.[7]

Iannucci has two brothers and a sister. His childhood home was near that of actor Peter Capaldi, who went on to play Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, a TV show created by Iannucci; although their parents knew each other well, he and Capaldi did not know each other in childhood.[7][8] Iannucci was educated at St Peter's Primary School, St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, the University of Glasgow[9] and University College, Oxford, where he studied English literature.[10] He was conducting a DPhil about John Milton, which he abandoned to follow a comedy career.

In his teens, Iannucci thought seriously about becoming a Roman Catholic priest.[11] He abandoned graduate work on 17th-century religious language, with particular reference to Milton's Paradise Lost, to pursue a career in comedy.[12]

Career

1990s

After making several programmes at BBC Scotland in the early 1990s such as No' The Archie McPherson Show, he moved to BBC Radio in London, making radio shows including Armando Iannucci[13] for BBC Radio 1, which featured a number of comedians he was to collaborate with for many years, including David Schneider, Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan and Rebecca Front.

Iannucci first received widespread fame as the producer for On the Hour on Radio 4, which transferred to television as The Day Today. He received critical acclaim for both his own talents as a writer and a producer, and for first bringing together such comics as Chris Morris, Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Baynham and Coogan. The members of this group went on to work on separate projects and create a new comedy "wave" pre-New Labour: Morris went on to create Brass Eye, Blue Jam and the Chris Morris Music Show; Stewart Lee and Richard Herring created Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy.

Baynham was closely involved with both Morris's and Lee & Herring's work. Lee would go on to co-write Jerry Springer: The Opera, and wrote early material for Coogan's character Alan Partridge, who first appeared in On the Hour, and has featured in multiple spin-off series. Between 1995 and 1999, Iannucci produced and hosted The Saturday Night Armistice.

2000s

In 2000, he created two pilot episodes for Channel 4, which became The Armando Iannucci Shows. This was an eight-part series for Channel 4 broadcast in 2001, written with Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil. The series consisted of Iannucci pondering pseudo-philosophical and jocular ideas and fantasies in between surreal sketches. Iannucci has been quoted as saying it is the comedy series he is most proud of making. He told The Metro in April 2007 "The Armando Iannucci Show [sic] on Channel 4 came out around 9/11, so it was overlooked for good reasons. People had other things on their minds. But that was the closest to me expressing my comic outlook on life."[14]

After championing Yes Minister on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom, Iannucci devised, directed and was chief writer of The Thick of It, a political satire-cum-farce for BBC Four.[15] It starred Chris Langham as an incompetent cabinet minister being manipulated by a cynical Press Officer, Malcolm Tucker.[16] It was first broadcast for two short series on BBC Four in 2005, initially with a small cast focusing on a government minister, his advisers and their party's spin-doctor. The cast was significantly expanded for two hour-long specials to coincide with Christmas and Gordon Brown's appointment as Prime Minister in 2007, which saw new characters forming the opposition party added to the cast. These characters continued when the show switched channels to BBC Two for its third series in 2009. A fourth series about a coalition government was broadcast in 2012. In a 2012 interview, Iannucci said the fourth series of the programme would probably be its last.[17]

Based on a format he had used in Clinton: His Struggle with Dirt in 1996 and 2004: The Stupid Version, in mid-2006, his spoof documentary series Time Trumpet was shown on BBC 2. The series looked back on past events through highly edited clips and "celebrity" interviews, looking back on the present and near-future from the year 2031. One episode, featuring fictional terrorist attacks on London and the assassination of Tony Blair, was postponed and edited in August 2006 amid the terrorism scares in British airports at that time. Jane Thynne, writing in The Independent, accused the BBC of lacking backbone.[18]

He created the American HBO political satire television series Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, set in the office of Selina Meyer, a fictional Vice-President of the United States.[19] Veep uses a similar cinéma-vérité filming style to The Thick of It. Debuting in 2012, the show has aired seven seasons, winning multiple awards including seventeen Primetime Emmy Awards. However, beginning with season five, Iannucci stepped down as showrunner due to "personal reasons".[20]

In 2019, he began work on a new science fiction sitcom for HBO called Avenue 5, which premiered in 2020[21] He subsequently became the series executive producer and directed the pilot.[22]

Other work

Ianucci's non-television works include Smokehammer, a web-based project with Chris Morris, and the 1997 book Facts and Fancies, composed of his newspaper columns, which was turned into a BBC Radio 4 series. The radio series Scraps With Iannucci, which followed late in 1998, featured Iannucci using his tape-fiddling skills to present a review of the year.

In 2007, he directed a series of Post Office television adverts, featuring the actors John Henshaw, Rory Jennings and Di Botcher alongside guest stars Joan Collins, Bill Oddie and Westlife.[23]

He has appeared on Radio 3 talking about classical music, one of his passions, and collaborated with composer David Sawer on Skin Deep, an operetta, which was premiered by Opera North on 16 January 2009. He has also presented three programmes for BBC Radio 3, including Mobiles Off!, a 20-minute segment on classical concert-going etiquette. He was a regular columnist for the classical music magazine Gramophone.[19] A book of his writings about classical music Hear Me Out was published in 2017.[12]

In 2012 it was announced that he was writing his first novel, Tongue International, a satirical fantasy about the promotion of a "for-profit language".[19][24]

Film directing

In January 2009, his first feature film In the Loop, in the style of The Thick of It, was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It was the first cinema film to be directed by Iannucci, after his contribution to Tube Tales in 1999. The film was applauded by critics, both in Britain and the US,[25] and was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2009.[26] The film secured the eighth highest placing in the UK box office in its opening week – despite its relatively insignificant screening numbers.

His second feature film was The Death of Stalin, about the power struggle which followed the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. It was released in October 2017 in the United Kingdom.[12] The film was banned in Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan for allegedly mocking the countries' pasts and making fun of their leaders.[27] However, It received a Magritte Award nomination in the category of Best Foreign Film and was a critical success.[28]

His third feature film was a 2019 adaptation of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield.,[12] entitled The Personal History of David Copperfield. It was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 24 January 2020 and received critical acclaim.[29][30]

Recognition

Iannucci has won two Sony Radio Awards and three British Comedy Awards. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.[31] He was also subject of a 2006 edition of The South Bank Show.

In January 2006 he was named News International Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at the University of Oxford,[32][33] where he has delivered a series of four lectures under the title "British Comedy – Dead Or Alive?".

In June 2011, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Glasgow to recognise his contribution to film and television.[34]

At the 2011 British Comedy Awards, Iannucci received the Writers' Guild of Britain Award.[35]

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.[36][37][38] Alastair Campbell's response to his appointment was "Three little letters can have more impact than you realise", to which Iannucci replied, via Twitter, "WMD"[39] (a reference to Campbell's role in preparing the "September Dossier" prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq).

In July 2012 Iannucci received an honorary Doctorate (DLitt) from the University of Exeter.[40]

Politics

In the 2010 general election Iannucci supported the Liberal Democrats, stating: "I'll be voting Lib Dem this election because they represent the best chance in a lifetime to make lasting and fair change to how the UK is governed."[41] After the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition of 2010 was established, however, he expressed doubts over his continued support for the party, saying he was 'wavering' on many issues and has admitted to 'queasiness' over the Coalition's economic measures. He also seemed to contemplate targeting the Liberal Democrats in the fourth series of The Thick of It, rather as the first three had targeted what he perceived as the failings within the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.[42]

In July 2018, Iannucci announced his support on Twitter for People's Vote,[43] a campaign group calling for a public vote on the final Brexit deal between the UK and the European Union. He also expressed these views the following month in an editorial in the Daily Mirror,[44] and they went on to be reported in other British newspapers.[45][46]

Personal life

In 1990, he married Rachel Jones, whom he met when she designed the lighting for his one-man show at Oxford.[47] They have two sons and one daughter and currently live in Hertfordshire.[39]

In 2004, Iannucci described Woody Allen as his "all-time comedy hero".[48]

He is patron of the Silver Star Society, a charity supporting women through difficult pregnancies.

In April 2012 he abseiled from the top of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to raise money for the hospital's specialist pregnancy unit.[49]

Filmography

Film

Title Year Role(s) Notes
Director Writer Producer
Tube Tales 1999 Yes Yes Segment: "Mouth"
In the Loop 2009 Yes Yes
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa 2013 Yes Executive
The Death of Stalin 2017 Yes Yes
The Personal History of David Copperfield 2019 Yes Yes Yes

Television

Title Year Functioned as Notes
Director Writer Producer Appeared Role
Up Yer News 1990 Yes Yes
The Day Today 1994 Yes Yes Yes Hellwyn Ballard Also co-creator with Chris Morris
Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge 1994 Yes Yes Also co-creator with Steve Coogan & Patrick Marber
The Saturday Night Armistice[lower-alpha 1] 1995–1999 Yes Yes Presenter
I'm Alan Partridge 1997–2002 Yes Yes Yes Also co-creator with Steve Coogan & Peter Baynham
Clinton: His Struggle with Dirt 1998 Yes Yes Yes Yes Himself Television special
The Armando Iannucci Shows 2001 Yes Yes Yes Yes Presenter Eight episodes
Gash 2003 Yes Yes Presenter Four episodes
Britain's Best Sitcom 2004 Yes Presenter Episode: "Yes Minister"
2004: The Stupid Version 2004 Yes Yes Yes Yes Presenter Television special
Have I Got News for You 2004–2017 Yes Panelist Seven episodes
The Thick of It 2005–2012 Yes Yes Yes Also creator
Time Trumpet 2006 Yes Yes Yes Yes Himself Also co-creator with Roger Drew & Will Smith
Comics Britannia 2007 Yes Narrator Three-part documentary series
Lab Rats 2008 Executive Six episodes
Milton's Heaven and Hell 2009 Yes Yes Presenter Television special
Genius 2009 Executive Six episodes
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle 2009–2011 Executive Yes Himself
Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge 2010–2011 Yes Executive Also co-creator with Steve Coogan & Neil and Rob Gibbons
Armando's Tale of Charles Dickens 2012 Yes Yes Presenter Television special
Hunderby 2012 Executive
Veep 2012–2015 Yes Yes Executive Also creator
Avenue 5 2020 Yes Yes Executive Also creator

Radio

Bibliography

Books

  • Facts and Fancies (Michael Joseph, 1997) ISBN 0-7181-3951-8
  • Alan Partridge: Every Ruddy Word All the Scripts: From Radio to TV. And Back by Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham, Armando Iannucci, Patrick Marber (Michael Joseph, 2003) ISBN 0-7181-4678-6
  • The Thick of It: The Scripts by Jesse Armstrong, Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell (Hodder & Stoughton, 2007) ISBN 978-0340937068
  • The Audacity of Hype: Bewilderment, Sleaze and Other Tales of the 21st Century (Little, Brown, 2009) ISBN 978-1-4087-0197-3
  • The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files (Faber & Faber, 2010) ISBN 978-0-571-27254-9
  • I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan by Rob Gibbons, Neil Gibbons, Armando Ianucci and Steve Coogan (Harper Collins, 2011) ISBN 978-0007449170
  • Hear Me Out: All My Music (Little, Brown, 2017) ISBN 978-1-4087-0988-7

Audiobooks

  • Facts and Fancies (BBC Audiobooks, 1998) ISBN 0-563-55756-7
  • I'm Alan Partridge: Knowing Me, Knowing Yule (BBC Audiobooks, 1998) ISBN 0-563-55763-X
  • Knowing Me, Knowing You...: With Alan Partridge: Complete Series (BBC Audiobooks, 1995) CD ISBN 0-563-38896-X, cassette ISBN 0-563-38891-9

Interviews

Awards and nominations

Award Year Category Recipient(s) and nominee(s) Result Ref(s)
Academy Awards 2010 Best Adapted Screenplay In the Loop Nominated [50]
British Academy Film Awards 2010 Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated
Outstanding British Film Nominated
2018 Best Adapted Screenplay The Death of Stalin Nominated
Outstanding British Film Nominated
British Academy Television Awards 1995 Best Entertainment Performance Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge Nominated
1998 Best Comedy I'm Alan Partridge Won
2010 Best Situation Comedy The Thick of It Won
Best Writer - Comedy Nominated
British Academy Scotland Awards 2009 Best Director in Film/Television In the Loop Won
Best Writer Film/Television Won
2017 Outstanding Contribution to Film & Television Himself Won
2018 Best Director in Film/Television The Death of Stalin Won
Best Writer Film/Television Won
British Independent Film Awards 2009 Best Director In the Loop Nominated
The Douglas Hickox Award Nominated
Best Screenplay Won
2017 Best British Independent Film The Death of Stalin Nominated
Best Screenplay Nominated
2019 Best British Independent Film The Personal History of David Copperfield Nominated [51]
Best Screenplay Won
Primetime Emmy Awards 2012 Outstanding Comedy Series Veep Nominated [52]
2013 Nominated
2014 Nominated
Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series Nominated
2015 Outstanding Comedy Series Won
Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series Nominated
Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series Won
European Film Awards 2018 Best Comedy The Death of Stalin Won [50]
People's Choice Award Nominated
London Film Critics' Circle Awards 2010 Breakthrough British Filmmaker In the Loop Nominated
Director of the Year Nominated
Screenwriter of the Year Won
National Society of Film Critics Awards 2018 Best Screenplay The Death of Stalin Won
Producers Guild of America Awards 2014 Best Episodic Comedy Veep Nominated
2015 Nominated
2016 Nominated
Satellite Awards 2019 Best Adapted Screenplay The Death of Stalin Nominated
Writers Guild of America Awards 2013 Best New Series Veep Nominated
2014 Best Comedy Series Won
2015 Nominated
2016 Won

Notes and references

Notes

  1. Later known as The Friday Night Armistice.

References

  1. "Tucker v McBride: When satire met reality". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 17 April 2009.
  2. Armando Iannucci biography and credits at the BFI's Screenonline
  3. Armando Iannucci interview, 23 October 2009
  4. Dougray, Ginny (8 September 2012). "Armando Iannucci on The Thick of It, Steve Coogan and (not) living the American dream". Radio Times. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
  5. Aspden, Peter (29 June 2012). "Lunch with the FT: Armando Iannucci". FT.com. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  6. Jamieson, Teddy (22 October 2017). "Armando Iannucci on politics, power, his new film The Death Of Stalin ... and Jacob Rees Mogg". HeraldScotland.com. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  7. Gilbert, Gerard (23 June 2012). "Armando Iannucci: 'How I conquered America'". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  8. "Peter Capaldi: 'People ask me to tell them to #@*! off'". The Independent. 9 April 2011. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
  9. "Armando Iannucci: 'What the BBC needs to do is to bite the bullet'". The Guardian. 22 March 2015. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
  10. "Interview: Armando Iannucci, writer and director". The Scotsman. 25 June 2012. Retrieved 10 April 2013.
  11. "Armando Iannucci". Tatler. Archived from the original on 28 August 2016. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
  12. "Armando Iannucci on how satirists should tackle strongmen—and what makes a line funny". Prospect. 6 October 2017.
  13. Chester, Stephen (11 March 1994). "The great Armando". The List. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  14. Williams, Andrew (1 April 2007). "60 SECONDS: Armando Iannucci". Metro.
  15. "BBC Comedy – Armando Iannucci". BBC.
  16. Wardrop, Murray (31 January 2012). "Peter Capaldi: 'Thick Of It spin doctor Malcolm Tucker was not based on Alastair Campbell'". The Telegraph.
  17. Mellor, Louisa (19 October 2012). "The Thick Of It series 4 to be its last". Den of Geek. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  18. Thynne, Jane (20 August 2006). "MEDIA DIARY – The war on humour". The Independent.
  19. Parker, Ian (26 March 2012). "Expletives not deleted". The New Yorker. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
  20. Stanhope, Kate (10 April 2015). "'Veep' Creator Armando Iannucci to Depart After Four Seasons (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  21. "Avenue 5 review – Armando Iannucci's cosmic caper gets utterly lost in space". The Guardian. 22 January 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  22. "HBO News - Armando Iannucci Returns to HBO with 'Avenue 5'". HBO. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  23. Sweney, Mark (12 October 2007). "Joan Collins in Post Office ad". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  24. "Armando Iannucci writes his first novel". Chortle. 31 March 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  25. Wise, Damon (21 January 2009). "In the Loop at the Sundance Film Festival Utah". The Times. London. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
  26. "Nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards". The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 4 February 2010. Retrieved 2 February 2010.
  27. "Russia's Culture Ministry Sues Movie Theater for Screening Armando Iannucci's 'The Death of Stalin'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  28. The Death of Stalin (2018), retrieved 10 June 2020
  29. Bradshaw, Peter (2 October 2019). "The Personal History of David Copperfield review – Iannucci relishes the absurdity". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  30. Lattanzio, Ryan (13 February 2020). "'The Personal History of David Copperfield' Trailer: Dev Patel and Armando Iannucci Rewrite Dickens". IndieWire. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  31. "The A-Z of laughter (part two)". The Guardian. London. 7 December 2003. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  32. "Armando Iannucci to lecture at Oxford on British comedy". ox.ac.uk. 18 January 2006."
  33. "Armando Iannucci named as Oxford University's next Broadcast Media Professor". ox.ac.uk. 2 November 2005. Archived from the original on 28 April 2013.
  34. "Armando Iannucci to receive honorary degree". BBC News. 9 June 2011.
  35. "British Comedy Awards 2011: Inbetweeners and Victoria Wood among winners". The Daily Telegraph. London. 17 December 2011.
  36. "No. 60173". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 June 2012. p. 10.
  37. "Armando Iannucci: OBE 'won't stop me poking fun at politicians'". BBC News. 16 June 2012. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
  38. "'Surreal and hilarious': Armando Iannucci receives an OBE". Daily Telegraph. 1 February 2013.
  39. Dougary, Ginny (8–14 September 2012). "The politics of humour". Radio Times. Immediate Media Company. 354 (4608): 23.
  40. "Honorary Graduates 2012: Armando Iannucci". University of Exeter. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  41. Battersby, Matilda (4 May 2010). "A who's who of celebrity political endorsements". The Independent. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  42. Jeffries, Stuart (22 October 2010). "Armando Iannucci: 'Now is not the time for a crap opposition'". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
  43. "Twitter: Armando Iannucci". Twitter.com. 20 July 2018. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  44. Iannucci, Armando (1 August 2018). "Armando Iannucci: Why I'm demanding a second referendum on the belched-up mess of Brexit". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
  45. Lindsay, Jessica (19 September 2018). "What is a 'People's Vote' on Brexit and how would it work?". Metro. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  46. "The Londoner: BBC stars flock to the People's Vote". Evening Standard. 16 August 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  47. Skinitis, Alexia (11 April 2009). "Armando Iannucci – Significant Others". The Times.
  48. "Armando Iannucci (interview)". BBC Comedy. 12 December 2004.
  49. Jones, Laura (23 April 2012). "Comedian takes plunge to aid baby unit". The Oxford Mail. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  50. "Armando Iannucci". IMDb. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
  51. Lattanzio, Ryan (1 December 2019). "British Independent Film Awards 2019 Winners: 'For Sama,' Renée Zellweger, 'Parasite' Score". IndieWire. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  52. "Armando Iannucci". Emmys.org. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
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