W1A - 'Twenty Twelve' takes on the BBC

I have high hopes for this upcoming comedy on BBC Two as Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville), fresh from 'delivering' the Olympics, takes up a new role as Auntie's Head of Values.

Always nice to see the BBC take the p**s out of itself. Perhaps this will be the BBC's slighted skewed, less populist version of NBC's 30 Rock.

And particularly topical at the moment, with renegotiation of the licence fee hot on the agenda. Looking forward to a few nice cameos too. Also hopefully some of the scenes will have been filmed in recognisable locations from a presentation point of view.

Shame Olivia Coleman doesn't seem to be involved in this one though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/w1a/

Starts Wednesday 26 March, 10.00pm on BBC Two.

It's actually 19 March is starts - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yvf3r

Even better . . .

Looking forward to this but worried it won't be the most biting satire.

One problem with Twenty Twelve, despite being a good show, was that it wasn't particularly vicious enough for satire. I mean, Seb Coe was in it, for God's sake. You didn't see politicians lining up to be in The Thick Of It.

I bet they were, but Ianucci wouldn't have any of them on - he's said as much about Veep.

With Twenty Twelve, there's the possibility that they didn't want to be seen as knocking the games themselves. Without that worry, hopefully they'll be sharper when it comes to Auntie. Though I can well imagine there being a few executives poking their nose in to make sure they don't go too far, given how battered the BBC is of late.

I am very excited. Twenty Twelve was brilliant.


She will be appearing in Rev. though! http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/rev3/

Veep starts up again in a few weeks for season 3. And Rev coming back makes me so happy too

So how long until Britain's Tastiest Village and How Big is Your Dog? actually get commissioned?

Guardian's Media Monkey did note that by coincidence Alan Titchmarsh announced earlier this week he was giving up his ITV chat show.
Ref: http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2014/mar/19/w1a-alan-titchmarsh-quits-chatshow-hugh-bonneville

I found the first episode very funny, funny enough that the half hour flew by. (And this is from someone who missed Twenty Twelve when it was on)

I can see the appeal and I should like it but... I found Twenty Twelve very smug self-satisfied, laughing at its own cleverness and this seemed to follow the same course.

As much as I've tried to like Veep, and love both The Thick of It and In the Loop, I just can't get into Veep, which is disappointing given everyone involved (including the great Julia Louis Dreyfus). :/

As for W1A, I enjoyed it. I felt Twenty Twelve was a little uneven, but had some great comedy. W1A will quite possibly be the same, but I certainly enjoyed the first episode. Although I'm slightly worried Siobhan Sharpe isn't going to offer as strong a comedic contrast to the other characters as she did in Twenty Twelve... W1A seems to be working to the premise that these people are competently incompetent - very ineffective, but that's very much the mantra. Whereas on Twenty Twelve, with so much to achieve in such little time, their screw-ups were nothing short of genuine, blatant incompetence... which is possibly funnier.