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Armando Iannucci (pronounced /„r-mændo“ j„-nu-t-“/) (born 1964) is a Scottish comedian, writer, director, performer and radio producer.
Background
Iannucci's father is from Naples, Italy, while his mother is from Glasgow, Scotland, where he was also born. Iannucci was educated at St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, the University of Glasgow, and University College, Oxford, where he read English. He abandoned graduate work on 17th-century religious language with particular reference to Milton's Paradise Lost, to pursue his career in broadcasting with an emphasis in comedy.
Career
Iannucci has an extensive history in British radio and television. First receiving widespread fame in the early 1990s as the producer for On the Hour and then 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, Peter Baynham and Steve 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' and Lee & Herring's work - simultaneously at one point. Lee would go on to co-write the controversial Jerry Springer - The Opera, but perhaps the most famous "alumnus" of this group is Steve Coogan's character Alan Partridge, who first appeared in On the Hour, and has featured in multiple spin-off series.
Despite his involvement in many facets of British comedy as a producer, writer and performer, Iannucci has remained relatively unknown amongst the British public. His projects include Smokehammer, a web-based project with Chris Morris, the short-lived topical satire Gash, as well as three programmes for BBC Radio 3, including Mobiles Off!, a 20-minute segment on classical concert-going etiquette. As well as television and radio work, he also wrote a book in 1997 entitled Facts and Fancies, compiling some articles from his newspaper columns, which was turned into a BBC Radio 4 series. A little-known radio series called Scraps With Iannucci followed late in 1998, in which Iannucci used his tape-fiddling skills to present a review of the year.
More recently, Iannucci devised, directed and was chief writer of The Thick of It, a political satire-cum-farce for BBC Four. It starred Chris Langham as an incompetent cabinet minister being manipulated by a cynical Press Officer, played by Peter Capaldi and based on Tony Blair's former Press Secretary Alastair Campbell. It was described by critics on BBC Two's Newsnight Review as a modern-day counterpart to Yes Minister, which Iannucci had championed on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom competition. He has also participated as a panelist on Radio 4's The News Quiz, having produced the programme earlier in his career.
In January 2006 he took the post of News International Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at the University of Oxford,[1] where he has delivered a series of four lectures under the title "British Comedy - Dead Or Alive-", saying in his introduction to the series that "It used to be that you went to Oxford to get into comedy. Now you get into comedy to go to Oxford".
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.[2] He was also subject of a 2006 edition of The South Bank Show.
His newest television programme, Time Trumpet, was a spoof documentary shown on BBC 2 during Summer 2006. It followed a similar format to his earlier one-off programmes Clinton: His Struggle with Dirt and 2004: The Stupid Version in looking back on past events through highly edited clips and "celebrity" interviews, although this time was looking back on the present and near-future from the year 2031. One notable 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.[3]
He has also directed the latest series of Post Office adverts, featuring the actors John Henshaw, Rory Jennings and Di Botcher alongside guest stars such as Joan Collins, Bill Oddie and Westlife.[4]
He has appeared on Radio 3 talking about classical music, one of his passions. He is currently collaborating with composer David Sawer on Skin Deep, an operetta, which is scheduled to be premiered by Opera North in early 2009.
Filmography
Television
- The Day Today (BBC 2 - creator, co-writer, producer plus occasional appearances. The Day Today was the TV adaptation of On The Hour)
- The Saturday Night Armistice (writer, producer, presenter etc. - later The Friday Night Armistice)
- Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge (co-writer, producer, co-creator)
- I'm Alan Partridge (co-writer, producer, director)
- The Armando Iannucci Shows (writer, performer, director)
- Clinton: His Struggle with Dirt (writer, director)
- Gash (writer, presenter)
- Have I Got News For You, twice as a panelist on 23rd April 2004 and 4 May 2007.
- The Thick of It (writer, director)
- 2004: The Stupid Version (Presenter, co-writer, director)
- Time Trumpet (writer, presenter, director)
- Lab Rats (executive producer)
Radio
Film
Bibliography
Print
Audiobooks
References
- ^ University of Oxford, 2005. "Armando Iannucci to lecture at Oxford on British comedy"
- ^ The 50 funniest people in Britain (part two) | Stage | The Observer
- ^ MEDIA DIARY - The war on humour
- ^ Joan Collins stars in Post Office ad | Media | MediaGuardian
External links
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