The Thick of It is a team-written show. The writers take it in turns to be on set for any last-minute changes that might be wanted… As these scenes tend to already be in pretty good shape, the notes from the creator, Armando Iannucci, at this stage are normally pretty brief… On this particular occasion he was in a hurry and all he said was:
Take a look at this.
Writer Tony Roche on how he came to add the word ‘omnishambles’ — which has gone on to become the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year for 2012 — to the already rich lexicon deployed by fictional communications director Malcolm Tucker in the BBC Two political comedy.