Thick Of It star landed Malcolm Tucker role when he was at a low

Peter Capaldi has credited The Thick Of It creator Armando Iannucci, with restoring his faith in acting and giving him a second life.

Speaking at an event celebrating  20 years of the political sitcom last week, Capaldi recalls feeling low about the state of his acting career when he attended the audition to play comedy’s sweariest protagonist, Malcolm Tucker.

‘All actors go through highs and lows,’ he told the audience at London’s Alexandra Palace. ‘But I was at a particular low. I had two auditions on the one day - which was something of a high - one at Television Centre which is always exciting and I had to audition for the role of an MP in front of six people I had already worked with before. I had to audition for a part which was essentially "Peter Capaldi walks across a room" in front of people who already knew me and my work.

‘That was a low and I so was already in a bad mood when I met Armando in a small room in Soho with Adam Tandy and the casting director. There was no script, which put me in an even worse mood. But I think that helped. I got the part.’

The event, chaired by Miles Jupp, also featured contributions from Chris Addison and Rebecca Front as well as Iannucci, writes G Neil Martin.

 Asked the perennial question about whether the show’s MPs were based on specific MPs, Iannucci remarked: ‘No, they’re more based on types although Harriet Harman did seem to think that Nicola Murray was based on her.’ Front also confirmed that the Labour peer had assumed Murray was based on her.

Asked about how she developed the character, Front said she didn’t want to be a weak, reactive character coming into a scene and just saying: ‘Oh, Malcolm, you can’t do that!’ (As she described her experience working on one children’s TV show). 

Instead she developed a more robust approach after having lunch with a political advisor to help her understand the character and role. ‘Just as we were leaving, I asked him what the character could do to really annoy Malcolm Tucker. He said, casually as he was picking up his jacket, "Oh, just believe in something."’ And that became the Murray-Tucker dynamic.

The evening also covered Front’s well-known phobias -such as being inside lifts and travelling on trains - although Iannucci says he did not know about the train phobia until after they had filmed episode 4 of season 4, which had  Nicola on a long train journey to attend a party event.

Iannucci told how was inspired to make the show after arguing the case for Yes Minister in a documentary made for a 2004 best British sitcom poll for BBC Two and said: ‘All of the themes, ideas are the same - Europe, Russia…’

Among some well-known bits of Thick trivia such as Jesse Armstrong populating the script with the names of his five-aside football team (Malcolm Tucker, Terry Coverley et al), Addison admitted sabotaging the possibility of a full acting scene with James Gandolfini in In The Loop. He thought Gandolfini saying ‘Go fuck yourself, Frodo’ was much funnier than the planned scene, as did Gandolfini. The audience also heard how Gandolfini was somewhat intimidated by Tucker.

Perhaps the evening’s most surprising anecdote came when the panel was discussing what potential targets would make The Thick Of It now. 'We were at a friend’s dinner party some time ago,’ said Jupp, ‘and I was sat next to this chap the whole evening and remembered nothing about him, nothing. I looked in the papers the next day and discovered it was Robert Jenrick.'

Published: 29 Sep 2025