Armando Iannucci

Biography: Armando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish-Italian comedian, satirist, writer, director, performer and radio producer. Born in Glasgow, he studied at Oxford University and left graduate work on a PhD about John Milton to pursue a career in comedy. Rising quickly through BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4, his early work with Chris Morris on the radio series On the Hour was transferred to television as The Day Today. A character from this series, Alan Partridge, went on to feature in a number of Iannucci's television and radio programmes including Knowing Me, Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge. In the meantime, Iannucci also fronted the satirical Armistice review shows and in 2001 created his most personal work, The Armando Iannucci Shows for Channel 4. Moving back to the BBC in 2005, Iannucci created the political sitcom The Thick of It as well as the spoof documentary Time Trumpet in 2006. Winning funding from the UK Film Council, he directed a critically acclaimed feature film In the Loop featuring characters from The Thick of It in 2009. As a result of these works, he has been being described by The Daily Telegraph as "the hardman of political satire".[2] Other works during this period include a operetta libretto, Skin Deep and his radio series Charm Offensive. He is currently working on a U.S. political satire for HBO called Veep.