Review - In The Loop, Screening Room, Hammersmith

To: acquisitions@bbc.co.uk
From: makingplans4nigel@blogspot.com
Subject: good f***king news




Dear Bunny,
Got a great idea to fill your empty slot, late night Beeb 2.

Saw a piece of film last night obviously pre-final edit as the running time is a ludicrous 106 mins, but with a little gentle pruning it just might work.

Main character is a government employee - a splenetic Scot with fine line in Anglo-Saxon word play, seems to be played by that nice young man who was in Local Hero and wore those marvellous wigs in The Devil's Whore. Spends alot of time screaming to very little effect at his department, and anyone else in his way "Kiss my sweaty bollocks". This is a blatantly fictitious character with no basis in reality.


Supporting roles include; an ineffectual and extremely short Northamptonshire MP, luckily played by the shortest actor in Equity the lovely Tom Hollander, might want to rethink the inclusion of shark porn but idea of watching the Discovery Channel for fear of an X-rated channel appearing on an itemised bill is frighteningly relevant.

The Head of Communications is a lovely woman, a little on the pale side, who is really only included so that the frightening Scot can shout at another gender and employ a lot of anti-female bile.

Her new assistant, Tobes, gets the only sexual action in the piece, and that's with his female counterpoint on the American side - a welcome return to Anna Chlumsky who was last seen kissing Macaulay Culkin, in My Girl.


As to the rest of the Americans, they are made up of; an enormous slab of beef called James Gandolfini, playing an anti-war General, Mimi Kennedy as somebody with bad teeth( not sure if that is a crack at the bad English teeth thing) in diplomacy, the previously mentioned young aide, and a slimy Senator who really, really wants a war. Apparently Gandolfini is really big in TV stateside, sorry I'm not that up to date with my American imports, and has obviously been included as a kind of testosterone Andie MacDowell ( see Four Weddings and a Funeral),and must have cost a fortune! But don't worry about that, 'cos here's what we do...

We ditch the whole American angle, too expensive and the whole idea of backing into a war feels dated. Keep the action at home, with more of a Yes Minister feel about it ( marvellous stuff).

Love the Scot, but too much of a good thing can be wearing and as he is a one dimensional character he won't suffer if we chop the piece into half hour eps. with possibly an hour special if it takes off.

Lose the "completely embarrassing chap in the woolly hat" story line, a mate of the directors, maybe, in need of a few quid, and we can't afford to offend Northampton in the current climate. (try and keep the MP's line re. his constituents."I'm like Simon Cowell, without the power to say:"Fuck off. You're all mental" though).

At the moment it feels like the writers, Iannucci, Armstrong and Blackwell had a fine time coming up with pages and pages of fabulous insults and then had to keep the plot going in order to get them all in, btw we won't lose any of the cinematic quality beacause there isn't any. Lets keep all those lovely words and get six eps. out of them. Title, I'll leave up to you. Fuck Off Minister?

Hope this floats your boat and see you on Sunday for brunch.

xxxxx