Armando Iannucci | |
|---|---|
 Iannucci in 2017 | |
| Born | Armando Giovanni Iannucci (1963-11-28)28 November 1963 (age 61) Glasgow, Scotland |
| Alma mater | University of Glasgow University College, Oxford |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Comedy career | |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Medium | Television, film, radio, stand-up |
| Genres | Sitcom,political satire |
Armando Giovanni IannucciCBE (/jəˈnuːtʃi/; born 28 November 1963) is a Scottish-Italiansatirist,writer,director, producer and performer.
Born inGlasgow toItalian parents, Iannucci studied at theUniversity of Glasgow followed by theUniversity of Oxford. Starting onBBC Scotland andBBC Radio 4, his early work withChris Morris on the radio seriesOn the Hour transferred to television asThe 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, includingKnowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge andI'm Alan Partridge. Iannucci also fronted the satiricalArmistice review shows and in 2001 created his most personal work,The Armando Iannucci Shows, for Channel 4.[1]
Moving back to theBBC in 2005, Iannucci created the political sitcomThe Thick of It and the spoof documentaryTime Trumpet in 2006.[1] Winning funding from the UK Film Council, in 2009 he directed a critically acclaimed feature film,In the Loop, featuring characters fromThe Thick of It. As a result of these works, he has been described byThe Daily Telegraph as "the hardman of political satire".[2] Other works during this period include an operetta libretto,Skin Deep, and his radio seriesCharm Offensive. Iannucci created theHBO political satireVeep, and was itsshowrunner for four seasons from 2012 to 2015. For his work onVeep he won twoEmmys in 2015,Outstanding Comedy Series andOutstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. He followed this with the feature filmsThe Death of Stalin in 2017 andThe Personal History of David Copperfield, a 2019 adaptation of the novelDavid Copperfield. In 2020, he created the comedy seriesAvenue 5 on HBO.
Iannucci was born inGlasgow. His father, also called Armando, was fromNaples, while his mother wasborn in Glasgow to an Italian family.[3] Before emigrating, Iannucci's father wrote for an anti-fascist newspaper as a teenager and joined theItalian partisans at 17.[4][5] He moved to Scotland in 1950 and ran a pizza factory inSpringburn in Glasgow.[6]
Iannucci has two brothers and a sister. His childhood home was near that of actorPeter Capaldi, who went on to playMalcolm Tucker inThe 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.[6][7] In his teens, Iannucci thought seriously about becoming aRoman Catholicpriest.[8]
Iannucci was educated at St Peter's Primary School,St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, theUniversity of Glasgow[9] andUniversity College, Oxford, where he studiedEnglish literature.[10] He was writing aDPhil thesis about 17th-century religious language, with particular reference toMilton'sParadise Lost, which he abandoned to follow a comedy career.[11] He was particularly inspired by the American comedian and filmmakerWoody Allen, later calling him his "all-time comedy hero".[12]
After making several programmes atBBC Scotland in the early 1990s such as theNo' The Archie McPherson Show, he moved to BBC Radio in London, making radio shows includingArmando Iannucci[13] for BBC Radio 1, which featured comedians he was to collaborate with for many years, includingDavid Schneider,Peter Baynham,Steve Coogan andRebecca Front.
Iannucci first received widespread fame as the producer forOn the Hour on Radio 4, which transferred to television asThe Day Today. He received critical acclaim for both his own talents as a writer and a producer, and for first bringing together such comics asChris 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 createBrass Eye,Blue Jam and theChris Morris Music Show; Stewart Lee and Richard Herring createdFist of Fun andThis Morning with Richard Not Judy.[citation needed]
Baynham was closely involved with both Morris's andLee & Herring's work. Lee would go on to co-writeJerry Springer: The Opera, and wrote early material for Coogan's characterAlan Partridge, who first appeared inOn the Hour, and has featured in multiple spin-off series. Between 1995 and 1999, Iannucci produced and hostedThe Saturday Night Armistice.[citation needed]
Iannucci's non-television works includeSmokehammer, a web-based project with Chris Morris, and the 1997 bookFacts and Fancies, composed of his newspaper columns, which was turned into aBBC Radio 4 series. The radio seriesScraps With Iannucci, which followed late in 1998, featured Iannucci using his tape-fiddling skills to present a review of the year.[citation needed]
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In 2000, he created two pilot episodes for Channel 4, which becameThe Armando Iannucci Shows. This was an eight-part series for Channel 4 broadcast in 2001, written withAndy Riley andKevin 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 toldMetro in April 2007: "The Armando Iannucci Show [sic] on Channel 4 came out around9/11, 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 championingYes Minister on theBBC'sBritain's Best Sitcom, Iannucci devised, directed and was chief writer ofThe Thick of It, a political satire-cum-farce forBBC Four.[15] It starredChris Langham as an incompetent cabinet minister being manipulated by a cynical, foul-mouthed Press Officer, Malcolm Tucker.[16] It was first broadcast for two short series onBBC Four in 2005, initially with a small cast focusing on a government minister, his advisers and their party'sspin-doctor. The cast was significantly expanded for two hour-long specials to coincide withChristmas andGordon Brown's appointment asPrime Minister in 2007, which saw new characters forming the opposition party added to the cast. These characters continued when the show switched channels toBBC 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 inClinton: His Struggle with Dirt in 1996 and2004: The Stupid Version in 2004, in mid-2006, his spoof documentary seriesTime 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 theterrorism scares in British airports at that time.Jane Thynne, writing inThe Independent, accused the BBC of lacking backbone.[18]
In 2007, he directed a series ofPost Office television adverts, featuring the actorsJohn Henshaw,Rory Jennings andDi Botcher alongside guest starsJoan Collins,Bill Oddie andWestlife.[19]
Iannucci has appeared on Radio 3 talking about classical music, one of his passions, and collaborated with composerDavid Sawer onSkin Deep, anoperetta, which was premiered byOpera North on 16 January 2009. He has also presented three programmes forBBC Radio 3, includingMobiles Off!, a 20-minute segment on classical concert-going etiquette. He was a regular columnist for the classical music magazineGramophone.[20]
In January 2009, his first feature filmIn the Loop, in the style ofThe Thick of It, was premiered at theSundance Film Festival. It was the first cinema film to be directed by Iannucci, after his contribution toTube Tales in 1999. The film was applauded by critics, both in Britain and the US,[21] and was nominated for theBest Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2009.[22] The film secured the eighth highest placing in the UK box office in its opening week – despite its relatively insignificant screening numbers.
He created the AmericanHBO political satire television seriesVeep, starringJulia Louis-Dreyfus, set in theoffice ofSelina Meyer, a fictional Vice-President of the United States.[20]Veep uses a similarcinéma-vérité filming style toThe Thick of It. Debuting in 2012, the show has aired seven seasons, winning multiple awards including seventeenPrimetime Emmy Awards. However, beginning with season five, Iannucci stepped down asshowrunner due to "personal reasons".[23]In 2012 it was reported that he was writing his first novel,Tongue International, a satirical fantasy about the promotion of a "for-profit language".[20][24] A book of his writings about classical musicHear Me Out was published in 2017.[11]Iannucci's second feature film wasThe 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.[11] The film was banned in Russia,Kazakhstan andKyrgyzstan for allegedly mocking the countries' pasts and making fun of their leaders.[25] However, it received aMagritte Award nomination in the category ofBest Foreign Film and was a critical success.[26]His third feature film was an adaptation of Charles Dickens'sDavid Copperfield[11] entitledThe Personal History of David Copperfield. It premiered at theToronto International Film Festival in 2019 and was cinematically released in the United Kingdom on 24 January 2020, receiving critical acclaim.[27][28]
In 2019, he began work on a new science fiction sitcom forHBO calledAvenue 5, which premiered in 2020.[29] He subsequently became an executive producer of the series and directed the pilot.[30]
In July 2023, Iannucci announced that he was working on astage adaptation ofStanley Kubrick's classicCold War satireDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.[31]Sean Foley would direct, and Iannucci's longtime collaboratorSteve Coogan would star in multiple roles.[32]
In 1990, he married Rachel Jones, whom he met when she designed the lighting for his one-man show at Oxford.[33] They have two sons and one daughter and currently live inHertfordshire.[34]
He is a formerpatron of the Silver Star Society, a charity supporting women through difficult pregnancies.[35] In April 2012, as part of his support for the Silver Star Society, heabseiled from the top of theJohn Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to raise money for the hospital's specialist pregnancy unit.[36]
In the 2010 general election Iannucci supported theLiberal 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."[37] After theConservative–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 ofThe Thick of It, rather as the first three had targeted what he perceived as the failings within theLabour governments ofTony Blair andGordon Brown.[38]
In July 2018, Iannucci announced his support on Twitter forPeople's Vote,[39] a campaign group calling for a public vote on the finalBrexit deal between the UK and the European Union. He also expressed these views the following month in an editorial in theDaily Mirror,[40] and they went on to be reported in other British newspapers.[41][42]
In 2022, Iannucci participated in theSight & Sound film polls of that year. It is held every ten years to select thegreatest films of all time, by asking contemporary directors to select ten films of their choice.[43]
Iannucci's selections were:
| Title | Year | Role(s) | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Writer | Producer | |||
| Tube Tales | 1999 | Yes | Yes | No | Segment: "Mouth" |
| In the Loop | 2009 | Yes | Yes | No | |
| Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa | 2013 | No | Yes | Executive | |
| The Death of Stalin | 2017 | Yes | Yes | No | |
| The Personal History of David Copperfield | 2019 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Title | Year | Functioned as | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Writer | Producer | Appeared | Role | |||
| Up Yer News | 1990 | No | Yes | No | Yes | ||
| The Day Today | 1994 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Hellwyn Ballard | Also co-creator withChris Morris |
| Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge | 1994 | No | Yes | Yes | No | — | Also co-creator withSteve Coogan &Patrick Marber |
| The Saturday Night Armistice[a] | 1995–1999 | No | Yes | No | Yes | Presenter | |
| I'm Alan Partridge | 1997–2002 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | — | 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 | No | Yes | No | Yes | Presenter | Four episodes |
| Britain's Best Sitcom | 2004 | No | No | No | Yes | Presenter | Episode: "Yes Minister" |
| 2004: The Stupid Version | 2004 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Presenter | Television special |
| Have I Got News for You | 2004–2023 | No | No | No | Yes | Panelist | Eight episodes |
| The Thick of It | 2005–2012 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | — | Also creator |
| Time Trumpet | 2006 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Himself | Also co-creator withRoger Drew &Will Smith |
| Comics Britannia | 2007 | No | No | No | Yes | Narrator | Three-part documentary series |
| Lab Rats | 2008 | No | No | Executive | No | — | Six episodes |
| Milton's Heaven and Hell | 2009 | No | Yes | No | Yes | Presenter | Television special |
| Genius | 2009 | No | No | Executive | No | — | Six episodes |
| Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle | 2009–2011 | No | No | Executive | Yes | Himself | |
| Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge | 2010–2011 | No | Yes | Executive | No | — | Also co-creator with Steve Coogan &Neil and Rob Gibbons |
| Armando's Tale of Charles Dickens | 2012 | No | Yes | No | Yes | Presenter | Television special |
| Hunderby | 2012 | No | No | Executive | No | — | |
| Veep | 2012–2015 | Yes | Yes | Executive | No | — | Also creator |
| Avenue 5 | 2020–2022 | Yes | Yes | Executive | No | — | Also creator |
| The Franchise | 2024 | No | No | Executive | No | — | |
Iannucci has won twoSony Radio Awards and threeBritish Comedy Awards. In 2003, he was listed inThe Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts inBritish comedy.[44] He was also subject of a 2006 edition ofThe South Bank Show.
In January 2006 he was namedNews International Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at theUniversity of Oxford,[45][46] where he has delivered a series of four lectures under the title "British Comedy – Dead Or Alive?".
In June 2011, he was awarded an honoraryDoctor of Letters by theUniversity of Glasgow to recognise his contribution to film and television.[47]
At the 2011 British Comedy Awards, Iannucci received the Writers' Guild of Britain Award.[48]
He was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the2012 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.[49][50][51]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"[34] (a reference to Campbell's role in preparing the "September Dossier" prior to the2003 invasion of Iraq).
In July 2012 Iannucci received anhonorary Doctorate (DLitt) from the University of Exeter.[52] He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 2019.[53]
He was appointed Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE) in the2024 Birthday Honours for services to film and television.[54]
