1990s After making several programmes at
BBC Scotland in the early 1990s such as the ''No' The Archie McPherson Show
, he moved to BBC Radio in London, making radio shows including Armando Iannucci'' for BBC Radio 1, which featured 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. Iannucci'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.
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
Metro in April 2007: "
The Armando Iannucci Show 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." 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. It starred
Chris Langham as an incompetent cabinet minister being manipulated by a cynical, foul-mouthed Press Officer, Malcolm Tucker. 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. Based on a format he had used in
Clinton: His Struggle with Dirt in 1996 and
2004: The Stupid Version in 2004, 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. 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. Iannucci 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. 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, and was nominated for the
Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2009. The film secured the eighth highest placing in the UK box office in its opening week – despite its relatively insignificant screening numbers.
2010s 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. 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". A book of his writings about classical music
Hear Me Out was published in 2017. However, it received a
Magritte Award nomination in the category of
Best Foreign Film and was a critical success. His third feature film was an adaptation of Charles Dickens's
David Copperfield He subsequently became an executive producer of the series and directed the pilot. In July 2023, Iannucci announced that he was working on a
stage adaptation of
Stanley Kubrick's classic
Cold War satire
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Sean Foley would direct, and Iannucci's longtime collaborator
Steve Coogan would star in multiple roles. In January 2026, Iannucci was announced as a contestant on the twenty-first series of
Taskmaster. ==Personal life==