Writer Tony Roche is one of a four-strong team who transferred their skills from small screen to large when they adapted the brilliant British comedy series The Thick of It for the cinema. The result, In The Loop, is one of the funniest and most savage satires seen for years. We interrupted Roche while he was having a cup of tea to get him to tell us how they did it…
LWLies: To begin with, can you just let us know a little about your background – who you are, how you got into writing, how you found your way to The Thick of It and In The Loop…?
Roche: Okay. Umm. I left college in the early ’90s when they were talking about the last recession. I couldn’t get a job and I ended up doing stand-up, randomly, partly because I couldn’t get a job. I did that for a while and then someone said, ‘Do you want to write for radio?’ So I ended up writing on a Radio 1 show for Alan Davies. It was Alan Davies and Bill Bailey. So I just started writing radio stuff, and a Radio 4 comedy called World of Pub, which ended up going on telly. And then I started writing telly stuff, then I ended up working for Armando [Iannucci] on the last show he did on Channel 4, which was, like, a daily topical show called Gash, which John Oliver was on actually. He quite liked doing daily topical shows, obviously. So Armando left Channel 4 and turned up at the Beeb and he sort of said, ‘I’m thinking about doing this political sit-com, do you want to do it?’ I said, ‘Yeah okay.’ And that was it. It was a series of happy accidents really.
LWLies: Is it the kind of world where once you’ve done one thing that people recognise and like, then that’s it – you’re in?
Roche: Yeah. It’s a really odd business to be honest – I don’t think I’ve ever quite figured out how it works. Sometimes people will just see your name on something they liked and get in touch. I suppose it’s a bit like being an actor. Actors often say if they do the part of a serial killer or something then people will ring up next time they need a serial killer or stuff like that. I suppose if you work on a topical show, then people who do topical shows will ask you to do stuff. There’s a bit of that and also a bit of random luck involved as well, I think.
LWLies: Did you have much of a background or even much of an interest in politics that made you right for The Thick of It?
Roche: I’m not massively knowledgeable. I have an interest in it but I’m not massively knowledgeable about it. And I guess I know a little bit more from doing the show. [Writer] Jesse [Armstrong] used to work in politics so the stuff he writes for the series and the film tends to be quite insidery because he knows more about it. I dunno. I sort of… Sometimes you can use the fact that you don’t know everything about the subject to your advantage in a way.
LWLies: With something like In The Loop that has a tem of writers, how competitive is the process in terms of making sure that as much of your stuff as possible makes the final cut?
Roche: I don’t think it’s very competitive. I mean, everyone wants to do well, I think. Like, you’d feel bad if everyone was getting a lot more in than you were. But it’s not a very aggressive bunch of people to be honest. Everyone’s quite nice, and also the way it’s written, it doesn’t really work like that. Because everyone is constantly re-writing everyone else’s material it’s difficult to be proprietorial about it as the script’s constantly changing.
LWLies: Can you talk us through the process of how the collaboration works?
Roche: Yeah, I’ll try. Everyone always assumes that we sit together in a room having a massive laugh and just being really fun and hanging out in a Jacuzzi or something. But we don’t do that. We meet up a couple of times together just to talk about the story and then we have quite an informal chat. And Armando will talk for about an hour. We met two or three times maybe to iron out the story a bit, then he wrote a couple of pages on the outline, you know, what was going to happen. Then Armando said, ‘Okay, one of you write the first third; someone write the middle; someone write the end.’ We did that and then he gave us notes on those bits of scripts, and he also was very strict about the fact that we had to write as quickly as possible. We wrote the first draft of this film in about a week. Normally, if we can get a draft of the TV show in five days we’ll try and do that. He likes it to be very rough so it feels more natural – he doesn’t want a very elegantly plotted thing, he wants it rough and ready. So he gave us notes back on the bits that we’d written, and then everyone just started swapping.
LWLies: It sounds like more of a democratic process than I thought it might be, given how closely associated with the show Armando is. I though he might be more proscriptive and you’d be charged with fulfilling his vision. Are you more able than that to bring your vision to it?
Roche: Yeah. I think Armando does have a pretty clear idea of what he wants but within that he’s very amenable to suggestions. I think what he says, where he does have a clear idea, is he might say, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be great if we do this…’ And you’ll go, ‘No, let’s not do that.’ or you realise that he definitely doesn’t want certain things. But if he likes the ideas then, yeah, they’ll go in. I think there is a lot of freedom, but he knows the boundaries of what he wants it to be.
LWLies: Isn’t is also frustrating when you write a killer line but no one knows that it’s one of yours?
Roche: Um… Well… I don’t think so. I think… If, like, maybe certain lines become über famous then probably you will find out who wrote them because we probably will lay claim to them. But no. Amongst friends maybe you might wanna say, ‘Oh, I wrote that one.’ But yeah. Unless you had a DVD version where, you know, the commentary was just the writers going, ‘I wrote that! I wrote that!’
LWLies: That actually sounds really good.
Roche: To be honest, like I was saying, the script gets over-written so much there are bits of it where none of us know who wrote it because we just can’t remember – we did so many drafts. I think all the writers have favourite bits but some stuff is… I mean we met up and we’re still talking about who wrote certain parts of it.
LWLies: The story I heard about The Thick of It was that they used to shoot one take sticking to the script and one take of pure imrov. As a writer, when you’re watching actors doing improv doesn’t it just feel like having a knife stuck repeatedly in your back?
Roche: No, no. No, it doesn’t actually. I think if you… Like, I’ve worked on scripts where you agonise over the rhythm and you pore over it and you want it to sound a certain way. But this show and this film just aren’t really written like that. Because they’re written in such a hurry, you can’t really refine stuff. Very occasionally you might write a line and when you see them do it you kind of think, ‘He’s reinterpreted it in a way that isn’t quite how I saw it,’ but it’s pretty rare that it makes a difference to anyone else other than you to be honest because it was only you that ever heard it in your head in that way – no one else knows that and so it doesn’t really matter. So no.
And the thing that’s great about watching them do that… Because, you know, everyone always says that being on set is really boring, which it can be, but when you’re on set with Armando it isn’t because, like you said, they only do two versions of it – the script version and then the kind of jazz version. I remember one day on the set watching Zach Woods and Chris Addison doing a take that was 10 minutes long and absolutely hilarious all the way through. They’re just both fantastic improves. I mean, a lot of the cast are great improves, but Zach actually works in an improv troupe in New York. And it was just great. And I suppose it’s slightly frustrating in a way because you think… And this doesn’t always happen but sometimes they get on a roll and they just seem to be effortlessly funny in a way that you can’t be with your writing. But then it all gets cut out because it’s of no relevance to the story. So you win in the end!
LWLies: I wanted to ask you about Malcolm Tucker. Is there a danger that because the writing of his character is so good, you humanise and humourise this guy whose job is no laughing matter. He’s poison to the political system but you almost elevate him into a kind of anti-hero.
Roche: Yeah maybe. Maybe. To a certain extent it kind of just happened organically maybe. That makes it sound like it’s slightly beyond our control, which it probably isn’t, but it sort of feels like it’s developed that way. It sort of depends how you want to see it in a way. You can see that he’s this incredibly monstrous man, but then also he’s been given this job, which is admirable. And he’s one of… The film is different, I think, because you’ve got Judy who is, kind of, a force for good in the film, she has moral values that she doesn’t deviate from. But Malcolm has a kind of belief in what he’s doing, and he just wants to get it done, which is kind of a heroic element to his character.
LWLies: He has a belief in his job but it’s completely divorce from any kind of ideology or bigger picture belief.
Roche: The way I’ve always thought of it in my head is you sort of feel that he came up through the ranks with the prime minister, and he believes in the prime minister’s ideology and so he’s said to himself, ‘I will do whatever it takes to get the prime minister’s will done. I believe that he’s a good guy – he’s my moral conscience and I’ll do whatever.’ But having said that, in the film you kind of think, on an issue as big as war you can sort of see in his eyes in a way that he doesn’t think it’s a good idea but he’s going to go through the motions. That’s when you see his flaws. I quite like the fact that he’s not just pure evil. I mean, in a way he is pure evil, but he’s also got a monkey on his back, which makes him more interesting.
LWLies: Do you find it difficult juggling the cynicism you need to write a film like In The Loop without completely losing faith in the system?
Roche: I… I think… Sorry, I don’t know the answer to that. Yeah, I still have faith in the political process. I think the snapshot that the film offers of the political world, it’s possible that you might at a moment in time see the political world behaving that badly, but it’s not that bad all the time. It’s funny, when we’re writing on the show and on the film, you do kind of go into this frame of mind where you become, like, a really foul mouthed, bitter person. I remember going to parties in the middle of doing the film and just talking like the characters in the film, and then realising that everyone was horrified. I was so used to that language, you know? It takes over for a little while and you have to, kind of, decompress from it.
LWLies: I was wondering as well what kind of access to and response from real-life politicians you get. Is it like Spinal Tap? Where, even though the film shows up how awful rock bands are, they still want to be associated with it?
Roche: Yeah apparently in the early days of The Thick of It there was a screening at Westminster. I wasn’t there for it but apparently it was a load of political operators raving about the show. When the film opened in the US, they had a screening in Washington and a load of politicos there absolutely loved it. People kept coming up to us going, ‘Oh, it’s just like that!’ And you think, ‘It’s sort of strange that you’re happy about that…’ It’s that classic thing that they all thought they were laughing at their enemies I suppose, not themselves. It was odd because we were sort of, like, heroes for a couple of hours. It was a bit odd.
When we filmed the last day of filming, it was the very opening of the film where you see Malcolm coming out of Number 10, and they filmed that at Number 10, which apparently is really unusual, they don’t normally give permission for that. And when they got there, there was a whole line of people behind the front door waiting to get photos with Peter Capaldi as Malcolm. They’re just saying, ‘Can you pretend you’re going to punch me?’ or, ‘Can you really shout at me?’ Apparently Alistair Darling walked past and said, ‘My son’s a massive fan, do you want to come and have tea with us?’ So they did and he was like, ‘Can I get a photo of you threatening my son?’ At that point there’s a bit of you that thinks, ‘Maybe this has failed as a project because you shouldn’t really be pleased to see us.’
LWLies: That’s the thing – you look back on 12 years or so of New Labour and they get to the point where they’re beyond parody. Or certainly beyond shame. They’re immune to satire.
Roche: It speaks to their vanity as well. They always say that politics is show business for ugly people, and it’s that thing where, when you do something about them, they just kinda go, ‘That’s me!’ Rather than going, ‘Oh, that’s a really horrible, twisted portrait of me.’ They just go, ‘That’s me! Brilliant! There I am… It’s my face!’ So in that sense, yeah, it just feeds their egos I suppose.
LWLies: Where do you go from here? Is the film’s success a game changer for you in your career?
Roche: I don’t know really to be honest. I don’t know. I suppose it’s like… No, I don’t know. There’s a kind of weird time lag when you do a project and people like it – it takes a long time for people to then get in touch with you and say, ‘We saw this and we thought maybe you’d like to work on this other thing.’ I remember when we did The Thick of It and it won a couple of BAFTAs, and a lot of people said we’d be getting offers, and it doesn’t happen like that. I think partly because people think you’ll be too busy but also, I guess, the projects that they have in mind don’t come to fruition for a while. There was a funny thing I remember with The Thick of It where we didn’t hear anything for a while and then I kept getting offered shows where it was kind of like The Thick of It, but people would pitch it like The Thick of It meets The Office or something and you’d just think, ‘I don’t know what that is. That’s just a show in an office crossed with another show set in an office.’
In The Loop is released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday August 24.
