Armando Iannucci facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Armando Iannucci
Iannucci in 2017
Birth name	Armando Giovanni Iannucci
Born	(1963-11-28) 28 November 1963 (age 61) Glasgow, Scotland
Medium	Television, film, radio, stand-up
Alma mater	University of Glasgow University College, Oxford
Years active	1990–present
Genres	Sitcom, political satire
Spouse	Rachel Jones ​ (m. 1990)​
Children	3

Armando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish writer, director, and producer. He is known for creating funny shows and movies that often make fun of politics and how people in power behave. He was born on November 28, 1963.

Iannucci grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, with parents who were from Italy. He went to the University of Glasgow and then the University of Oxford. He started his career at BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4. His early work included a radio show called On the Hour, which later became a TV show called The Day Today.

One of the characters from these shows, Alan Partridge, became very popular. Armando Iannucci helped create this character, who then appeared in many other TV and radio shows like Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge. Iannucci also hosted a comedy show called Armistice. In 2001, he made a more personal show called The Armando Iannucci Shows for Channel 4.

In 2005, Iannucci returned to the BBC. He created the political comedy show The Thick of It. In 2006, he made a fake documentary called Time Trumpet. In 2009, he directed a movie called In the Loop, which was based on characters from The Thick of It. This movie was very popular with critics. Because of his work, he has been called a "hardman of political satire" by The Daily Telegraph.

Later, he created the American political comedy show Veep for HBO. He was the main writer and producer for the first four seasons, from 2012 to 2015. For Veep, he won two Emmys in 2015 for Best Comedy Series and Best Writing for a Comedy Series. He also directed the movies The Death of Stalin in 2017 and The Personal History of David Copperfield in 2019, which was based on the book David Copperfield. In 2020, he created another comedy series for HBO called Avenue 5.

Early Life and School

Armando Iannucci was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, also named Armando, was from Naples, Italy. His mother was born in Glasgow, but her family was also Italian. Before moving to Scotland, Iannucci's father wrote for a newspaper that was against fascism when he was a teenager. He also joined the Italian partisans at age 17. He moved to Scotland in 1950 and ran a pizza factory in Springburn, Glasgow.

Armando has two brothers and one sister. His childhood home was close to where actor Peter Capaldi lived. Capaldi later played a character named Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, a TV show that Iannucci created. Even though their parents knew each other, Armando and Peter did not know each other when they were kids. When he was a teenager, Iannucci thought about becoming a Roman Catholic priest.

Iannucci went to St Peter's Primary School and St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow. He then studied English literature at the University of Glasgow and University College, Oxford. He was working on an advanced degree about religious language from the 1600s, especially about Milton's Paradise Lost. However, he stopped his studies to start a career in comedy. He was greatly inspired by the American comedian and filmmaker Woody Allen, who he called his "all-time comedy hero."

Comedy Career

Starting in the 1990s

In the early 1990s, Armando Iannucci made several shows for BBC Scotland. He then moved to BBC Radio in London. There, he created radio shows like Armando Iannucci for BBC Radio 1. These shows featured comedians he would work with for many years, including David Schneider, Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, and Rebecca Front.

Iannucci became widely known as the producer for On the Hour on Radio 4. This show was so popular that it was made into a TV show called The Day Today. He was praised for his writing and producing skills. He also brought together many talented comedians like Chris Morris, Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Peter Baynham, and Steve Coogan. These comedians went on to create many new and popular comedy shows.

One of the characters, Alan Partridge, first appeared in On the Hour. Iannucci helped create this character with Steve Coogan. Alan Partridge then starred in many spin-off shows. From 1995 to 1999, Iannucci produced and hosted The Saturday Night Armistice.

Work in the 2000s

Iannucci in 2010

In 2000, he created two pilot episodes for Channel 4, which led to The Armando Iannucci Shows. This was an eight-part series that aired in 2001. In the show, Iannucci would think about funny and sometimes strange ideas, mixed with silly sketches. Iannucci has said this is the comedy series he is most proud of. He mentioned that it came out around the time of the 9/11 events, so it wasn't noticed as much.

After supporting Yes Minister on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom, Iannucci created and directed The Thick of It. This show was a political comedy that made fun of government. It first aired on BBC Four in 2005. The show focused on a government minister and his team, including a tough press officer named Malcolm Tucker. The cast grew over time, and the show moved to BBC Two for its third series in 2009. A fourth series about a coalition government aired in 2012. Iannucci said that the fourth series would likely be the last.

In mid-2006, his fake documentary series Time Trumpet was shown on BBC 2. The series pretended to look back at past events from the year 2031, using fake clips and interviews. One episode had to be changed because it showed fictional terrorist attacks and an assassination, which was too sensitive at the time due to real-life events.

He also created the American HBO political comedy show Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The show is about the office of Selina Meyer, a made-up Vice-President. Veep uses a similar filming style to The Thick of It. The show started in 2012 and ran for seven seasons, winning many awards. Iannucci stepped down as the main producer after season four for personal reasons.

In 2019, he started working on a new science fiction comedy show for HBO called Avenue 5, which began in 2020. He was the executive producer and directed the first episode.

Other Projects

Iannucci has worked on projects outside of TV. These include Smokehammer, a web project with Chris Morris, and a 1997 book called Facts and Fancies. This book was based on his newspaper columns and was later made into a BBC Radio 4 series. He also had a radio series called Scraps With Iannucci in 1998.

In 2007, he directed a series of Post Office TV commercials. He has also appeared on Radio 3 to talk about classical music, which he loves. He worked with composer David Sawer on Skin Deep, a short opera, which was first performed in 2009. He has presented three shows for BBC Radio 3, including one about good manners at classical concerts. He also wrote columns for the classical music magazine Gramophone. A book of his writings about classical music, Hear Me Out, was published in 2017.

In 2012, it was reported that he was writing his first novel, Tongue International. This book is a funny story about a made-up language that is promoted for profit.

In July 2023, Iannucci announced he was working on a stage play based on Stanley Kubrick's movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Sean Foley is directing it, and Iannucci's long-time friend Steve Coogan will play several roles.

Directing Movies

In January 2009, his first full-length movie, In the Loop, was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. It was made in the style of The Thick of It. Critics in both Britain and the US praised the film. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2009.

His second movie was The Death of Stalin, released in October 2017 in the UK. It is about the fight for power after Joseph Stalin died in 1953. The film was banned in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan because they said it made fun of their history and leaders. However, it was very popular with critics and won an award nomination.

His third movie was The Personal History of David Copperfield, an adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel David Copperfield. It was released in the UK on January 24, 2020, and received great reviews from critics.

Personal Life

In 1990, Armando Iannucci married Rachel Jones. They met when she designed the lighting for one of his shows at Oxford. They have two sons and one daughter and live in Hertfordshire.

He used to be a supporter of the Silver Star Society, a charity that helps women with difficult pregnancies. In April 2012, to support this charity, he climbed down the side of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to raise money for the hospital's special pregnancy unit.

Political Views

In the 2010 general election, Iannucci supported the Liberal Democrats. He said they offered the best chance for fair change in how the UK is governed. However, after the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition was formed in 2010, he had doubts about supporting them. He felt unsure about some of the Coalition's economic plans. He even thought about making fun of the Liberal Democrats in the fourth series of The Thick of It, just as he had criticized the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in earlier series.

In July 2018, Iannucci announced on Twitter that he supported People's Vote. This group wanted a public vote on the final Brexit deal between the UK and the European Union. He also shared these views in an article in the Daily Mirror the next month.

Favorite Films

In 2022, Iannucci took part in the Sight & Sound film polls. This poll happens every ten years and asks directors to choose their ten favorite films of all time.

Iannucci's choices were:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• The Godfather (1972)
• The Battle of Algiers (1966)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• Nashville (1975)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Alien (1979)
• Festen (1998)
• Ran (1985)
• Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Works

Movies

Television Shows

Radio Shows

• Down Your Ear (BBC Radio 4 – creator, writer, producer)
• On the Hour (BBC Radio 4 – creator, co-writer, producer)
• No' The Archie McPherson Show (BBC Radio Scotland – presenter, comedy sketch writer)
• Bite The Wax (BBC Radio Scotland – presenter, comedy sketch writer)
• Armando Iannucci (BBC Radio 1 – writer, presenter, producer)
• The News Quiz (BBC Radio 4 – producer, also appeared as guest)
• Quote... Unquote (BBC Radio 4 – producer)
• Loose Talk (producer)
• The Mary Whitehouse Experience (producer)
• Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge (producer)
• The 99p Challenge on BBC Radio 4.
• Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive on BBC Radio 4
• Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World as various characters.
• Desert Island Discs – BBC Radio 4 as a guest. Armando shared how he used to play Wagner to annoy his parents, who loved classical music.
• Scraps With Iannucci a BBC Radio 4 series from 1998.
• Week Ending (BBC Radio 4 – producer)
• Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (several times as a guest)
• The Unbelievable Truth (BBC Radio 4 – guest)

Books

• Facts and Fancies (1997)
• Alan Partridge: Every Ruddy Word All the Scripts: From Radio to TV. And Back (2003) by Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham, Armando Iannucci, Patrick Marber
• The Thick of It: The Scripts (2007) by Jesse Armstrong, Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell
• The Audacity of Hype: Bewilderment, Sleaze and Other Tales of the 21st Century (2009)
• The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files (2010)
• I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan (2011) by Rob Gibbons, Neil Gibbons, Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan
• Hear Me Out: All My Music (2017)

Audiobooks

• Facts and Fancies (1998)
• I'm Alan Partridge: Knowing Me, Knowing Yule (1998)
• Knowing Me, Knowing You...: With Alan Partridge: Complete Series (1995)

Awards and Recognition

Armando Iannucci has won many awards for his work. He has received two Sony Radio Awards and three British Comedy Awards. In 2003, The Observer newspaper listed him as one of the 50 funniest people in British comedy. He was also featured on The South Bank Show in 2006.

In January 2006, he became a visiting professor at the University of Oxford. He gave a series of four talks about British comedy.

In June 2011, the University of Glasgow gave him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree to recognize his contributions to film and television.

At the 2011 British Comedy Awards, Iannucci received the Writers' Guild of Britain Award.

He was given the title Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2012 for his services to broadcasting. In 2019, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).

In 2024, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to film and television.

Awards and Nominations List

See also

In Spanish: Armando Iannucci para niños

• List of British film directors
• List of Academy Award winners and nominees from Great Britain
• List of Primetime Emmy Award winners