Armando Iannucci may not be a recognizable name in this country, but his comedy masterpieces from the BBC are many and have graced these pages repeatedly. The Day Today, I'm Alan Partridge, The Thick of It; to say his impact on British comedy is immense would be an understatement. Steve Coogan and Ricky Gervais seem to owe a lot to his surreal comedic stylings.
In the Armando Iannucci Shows he's in front of the camera for the first time and his persona is sympathetically paranoid, confused and amazed by the modern world. The show is existential, dealing with subjects like reality, communication, morality, and… twats. He deals with these heavy issues with skits involving houses made of paper, operas about the dot com exodus to Ibiza, an old man named Hugh who remembers the surreal and fictional “old days”, and racist police horses.
There are only eight episodes in classic BBC fashion, and also in classic BBC fashion, you can only see these if you have an all region DVD player (or are my friend and can come by and watch them). We should feel lucky we can see them at all, it took five years for them to be released on DVD, even in the UK.
But what do you think?