To celebrate next week’s launch of Veep, the new HBO comedy from British writer Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, I’m Alan Partridge), we’ve picked out our five all-time favourite political TV shows.
Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld), Sufe Bradshaw (Overnight), Anna Chlumsky (In The Loop) and Tony Hale (Arrested Development), Veep sees Iannucci turn his attention to the inner workings of American politics inside the government offices of Washington DC.
Veep begins at 10pm on Monday 25th June on Sky Atlantic.
Yes, Minister (1980-1984)
BBC Two’s Yes, Minister is still the grand-daddy of political satire. So much so that a sequel series to the sequel series, Yes, Prime Minister, is currently being made for comedy channel Gold.
Dig out an original episode and it’s almost terrifying how similar the situations are to today’s politics. In one episode, Hacker, recently elected to the post of Prime Minister, wants to flex his liberal and caring muscle. It doesn’t take too long for him to realise that the judgement of the unforgiving tabloids mean that it would be less controversial for him to claim expenses for a live-in cook than it would be to enter into a dialogue with other leaders that could potentially lead to world peace.
The Thick of It (2005-2012)
Made (in)famous due to the presence of Peter Capaldi’s inventively sweary Malcolm Tucker, there’s more to The Thick of It than just rude words.
In Yes, (Prime) Minister, the view was that basically good people couldn’t do good because it wouldn’t be the popular choice. In The Thick of It, however, we’re led to the disquieting conclusion that most of the people in power are idiots, and even if they’re not, they can brought down because of someone else’s idiocy.
Due this autumn, a fourth series is a long time in coming, partially due to creator Armando Iannucci being distracted by his work on Veep, but mostly because planned storylines can’t match the day to day machinations of the Coalition government.
The New Statesman (1987-1994)
ITV’s take on Yes, Minister, as such it is brasher, cruder and louder. It’s telling – and entirely appropriate – that when Rik Mayall’s Alan B’Stard was resurrected at the height of the Blairite era for a stage show, Alan had jumped ship to create New Labour, which in its sleek, ad-friendly sheen, was virtually indistinguishable from the Conservatives we’d first seen Mayall’s character with.
Of all the political shows on television, New Statesman is perhaps closest to a Gerald Scarfe cartoon, ignoring all logic and much narrative to make a devastating point.
The West Wing (1999-2006)
It’s perhaps unsurprising that most dramas have a fairly liberal bias in their politics – writers, after all, are a rarely Right wing bunch – but this romanticised view of the White House ran pretty much parallel with the Bush administration, creating a Through The Looking Glass view of What Could Be.
The later seasons are at least loosely credited with allowing middle America to get up to speed with the concept of voting in a President who – wait for it – was not white.
The Leveson Inquiry (2011-2012)
We’re being entirely serious. With guest stars such as Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant (both achieving middle aged sexy statesmen status for simply suggesting what we all already knew: that tabloid newspapers aren’t very nice), to simply jaw dropping witnesses like Paul McMullan (seriously, find it on YouTube: it comes to something when Consul, charged with uncovering evidence, feels compelled on innumerable occasions to suggest to the witness that he might want to consider shutting up), the Leveson Inquiry has provided more watercooler moments than most of this year’s scripted TV put together.
What’s your favourite political TV show? Let us know below…
> Buy the complete The Thick of It boxset on Amazon.
Watch the trailer for Veep…