Happy 57th Birthday, Armando Iannucci! Born today in 1963 as Armando Giovanni Iannucci, this Scottish radio producer, satirist, writer and director has written, produced and directed numerous critically acclaimed television and radio comedy shows.
Iannucci is best known through his work of which often involves politics and political institutions.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, Iannucci's father, also called Armando, was from Naples, Campania, Italy while his mother was born in Glasgow to an Italian family.
Before emigrating, Iannucci's father wrote for an anti-fascist newspaper as a teenager and joined the Italian partisans at seventeen. He later came to Scotland in 1950 and ran a pizza factory in Springburn.
Iannucci's childhood home was near that of Scottish actor, writer and director Peter Capaldi, of whom went on to play fictional antihero Malcolm Tucker in the BBC British political satire comedy television series The Thick of It (2005–2012), co-written and created by Iannucci.
Although their parents knew each other well, he and Capaldi did not know each other in childhood.
Iannucci was later educated at St Peter's Primary School, St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, the University of Glasgow and University College, Oxford, where he studied English literature.
In his teens, Iannucci thought seriously about becoming a Roman Catholic priest.
However, he later abandoned graduate work on 17th-century religious language, with particular reference to John Milton's epic 1667 poem "Paradise Lost" to pursue a career in comedy.
In 1990, Iannucci married Rachel Jones, of whom he had met when she designed the lighting for his one-man show at Oxford.
After making several programmes at BBC Scotland in the early 1990s, such as the six-part BBC Radio Scotland series "No' The Archie McPherson Show", he moved to BBC Radio in London.
While there, he made radio shows, including "Armando Iannucci" for BBC Radio 1. This featured a number of comedians he was to collaborate with for many years.
These included Steve Coogan, English actor, comedian and director David Schneider, Welsh screenwriter and performer Peter Baynham, and English actress, writer and producer Rebecca Front.
Iannucci first received widespread fame as the producer for "On the Hour" on Radio 4.
This later transferred to the BBC British comedy television show as The Day Today (January 19, 1994–February 23, 1994).
He later received critical acclaim for both his own talents as a writer and a producer, and for first bringing together such comics as Coogan, Baynham. and Chris Morris ('Four Lions').
This also included English stand-up comedian, writer and ventriloquist Richard Herring, and English stand-up comedian, writer and director Stewart Lee.
The members of this group later went on to work on separate projects and create a new comedy "wave" pre-New Labour.
In 2000, Iannucci created two pilot episodes for Channel 4. This later became the British surreal comedy sketch series The Armando Iannucci Shows (August 30, 2001–October 18, 2001). This was an eight-part series for Channel 4 broadcast in 2001.
The series consisted of Iannucci pondering pseudo-philosophical and jocular ideas and fantasies in between surreal sketches.
In 2004, Iannucci described Woody Allen as his "all-time comedy hero".
After championing the British political satire sitcom Yes Minister (1980–1982) on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom, Iannucci devised, directed and was chief writer of The Thick of It. This was political satire-cum-farce for BBC Four.
It starred English writer, actor and comedian Chris Langham as an incompetent cabinet minister being manipulated by cynical Press Officer Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi).
The programme 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 British politician Gordon Brown's appointment as prime minister in 2007, which saw new characters forming the opposition party added to the cast.
As of November 2005, Iannucci is currently Professor of Broadcast Media at Oxford University.
Iannucci has been quoted as saying that The Armando Iannucci Shows is the comedy series of which he is most proud of making.
He later told The Metro in April 2007 "The Armando Iannucci Show [sic] 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."
The characters from The Thick of It continued when the show switched channels to BBC Two for its third series in 2009.
Also that same year, Iannucci co-wrote and directed the film of which he Is best known. This was the 2009 British satirical black comedy film 'In the Loop'.
The film was a spin-off from The Thick of It and satirizes Anglo-American politics, in particular the invasion of Iraq.
The film also stars Gina McKee, Chris Addison, David Rasche, and James Gandolfini.
During an interview, British Cabinet Minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) delivers an off-the-cuff remark that war in the Middle East is "unforeseeable."
Profane political spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) tries to cover up Foster's faux pas, but the ill-conceived comment is picked up by a warmongering American official.
Foster is then invited to Washington, D.C., where a war of words brews as politicians maneuver, manipulate and deceive each other before a U.N. vote on military action.
The following year, 'In the Loop' was nominated an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. However, the film didn't win. This occurred at the 82nd Academy Awards in early March 2010.
A fourth series about a coalition government was broadcast in 2012, with the last episode transmitted.
In a 2012 interview, Iannucci said the fourth series of the programme would probably be its last.
Later that same year, Iannucci created and co-wrote the American political satire comedy television series Veep (2012–2019) for HBO.
Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the program was set in the office of Sen. Selina "Politics is about people" Meyer, a fictional Vice-President of the United States. Veep used a similar cinéma-vérité filming style to The Thick of It.
Debuting on April 22, 2012, the show has aired six seasons, with its sixth starting in April 2017.
However, beginning with season five, Iannucci stepped down as showrunner due to "personal reasons".
On developing Veep, Iannucci said, “Watching the political process at the moment, one's instinct is to laugh because the alternative is to cry.
That's where I come from, really. I believe people today are genuinely frustrated because they don't understand how so many clearly able people, concentrated in one locale, can't sort things out.”
Iannucci is patron of the Silver Star Society, a charity supporting women through difficult pregnancies.
Also in April 2012, Iannucci abseiled from the top of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to raise money for the hospital's specialist pregnancy unit.
In June of that same year, Iannucci was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to broadcasting.
Five years later, Iannucci wrote and directed the 2017 British/French/Belgian/Canadian/American comedy/dark comedy film 'The Death of Stalin'. It stars Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor and Michael Palin.
According to his trademarks, Iannucci’s works tend to have lots of profane language, unsympathetic characters who only care about themselves, and characters who drastically overestimate their importance and capabilities.
According to Iannucci's personal life, he and Jones have two sons and one daughter.
Armando and Jones currently reside in Hertfordshire, having previously lived in Buckinghamshire.
Iannucci has been active from 1990–present.
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