In the Loop

Lordy, and I thought The Wire had bad language...!

For those not in the know, In The Loop is a sort of continuation, in film, of the BBC4 comedy series In The Thick of It, which is in turn a sort of update of the great comedy series Yes (Prime) Minister, but with added swearing. In particular, we have Peter Capaldi reprising his role of government fixer Malcolm Tucker, a man supposedly inspired by Alastair Campbell. And this time the subject would seem to be war in the Middle East (though Iraq is never mentioned by name), and whether or not the UK is going to back US military intervention.

I confess I had high hopes for this, as it's been very well reviewed. And for the most part those hopes have been met. I laughed out loud quite a few times, and I really cannot express fully enough quite how virtuoso (and funny) the swearing is. The only trouble is you'll come out of the cinema wanting to eff and blind at the first person you meet, which can't really be A Good Thing. And leading on from this, can I register here my astonishment that the film is only a 15 rating? I know that bad language alone isn't enough to get the good people of the BBFC reaching for their 18 certificate, but blimey, there really isn't a swear word left unflung here, including one starting with "c", which I confess I thought was more suited for the 18 territory. But hey, what do I know? So whilst I'm happy to endorse this movie, I'd caution teachers against reaching for this to put into the DVD player come the last week of June. You know who you are...

Kudos in particular here to the other Scottish actor, Paul Higgins, who has a fairly minor role as an even worse violent, foul mouthed government fixer and is so outrageously funny and scary that you automatically wish he was a Depute Head Teacher in your school. Or maybe that's just me...

How's the maths?
Och. Slim pickings here yet again. I mean, there's a vote in the UN at one point, which made me think maybe we were in for a bit of percentage work, but no. Then again, maybe this is entirely true to life: since when did politicians know anything about maths anyway?