Armando Iannucci

The official script for the box-office smash movie, featuring every ruddy word (and stage direction) of Alan’s seamless transformation from natural-born broadcaster into fully fledged and occasionally fully dressed hostage negotiator. Contains deleted scenes and an exclusive Foreword by Steve Coogan. With a television career behind him and a much-coveted breakfast slot in his spiritual home, regional digital radio, there was only one place left for Alan Partridge to turn: Hollywood! Or rather, an Anglo-French funded co-production for the big screen. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa sees Alan face his biggest challenge since he spent six months in a travel tavern, and is almost certainly the first time he has handled a loaded gun since he was a prime-time BBC2 presenter. When his beloved income-source North Norfolk Digital is taken over by a faceless media conglomerate, Alan’s inimitable instinct for self-preservation leads to a violent and bloody siege on the radio station by an unhinged, nay mentalist, DJ, and a hostage crisis for which there can be only one man with the chat to diffuse it … Featuring a cast of old and new Partridge favourites, including Sidekick Simon, assistant Lynn and Michael the Geordie, Alpha Papa is proof that while the jury’s out on whether you can keep a good man down, it’s an outright fact that you can’t keep a good regional broadcaster off the airwaves.

Tell, Mighty Wit, how the highest in forethought and, That tremendous plus, The Science, Saw off our panic and Globed vexation Until a drape of calmness furled around the earth And beckoned a new and greater normal into each life For which we give plenty gratitude and pay Willingly for the vict'ry triumph Merited by these wisest gods. Pandemonium is an epic mock-heroic poem, written in response to the pandemic with all the anger and wit that Armando Iannucci brings to his vision of contemporary events. It tells the story of how Orbis Rex, Young Matt and his Circle of Friends, Queen Dido and the blind Dom'nic did battle with 'a wet and withered bat' from Wuhan.

TONGUE INTERNATIONAL is a satirical fantasy about a new language invented by a small company, which people are charged for the privilege of speaking and writing. Through skilful marketing, the language becomes a dominant idiom of international communication, even though it has several basic design weaknesses - as the vocabulary grows, users have to hold certain objects in their hand to indicate shifting levels of emphasis. The company corners the market in manufacturing these objects, as well as clip-on pouches to hold them which people are obliged to wear at all times. More and more people discover that it is easier to work things out in their sleep (where natural language reverts) and economies are crippled as captains of industry try to get as much sleep as possible. Charting the deals negotiated by the company to secure a schools monopoly and the speech- fights launched by rebel campaigners who sabotage broadcasts and heckle politicians with English, TONGUE INTERNATIONAL is a brilliantly biting satire on cultural dominance and a hilarious look at the use and abuse of language in all aspects of public life from one of the most talented comic writers of our time.

A celebration of music from the creator of Alan Partridge, The Thick of It, Veep and The Death of Stalin. All my days, I've felt pressurized by the anonymous Keepers of the Cool who tell us what we should be wearing this year, what digital boxsets we should bunker ourselves in to enjoy, what amazing app is the only one we should be shrieking emotions at our recently acquired friends with. Thankfully, I have the one consolation that if I don't quite fit into all of this, everyone else probably feels the same way. So, I say defiantly, I get more moved and excited by classical music than by any other musical genre. I believe that it is there for us all, inviting us to reach out and touch it. In Hear Me Out Armando Iannucci brilliantly conveys the joy of his musical exploration, each discovery suggesting a fresh direction of travel, another piece, another composer, another time.

In THE AUDACITY OF HYPE, Armando Iannucci cuts straight to the heart of the insanity and sherbet-headed nonsense of modern life. THE AUDACITY OF HYPE brings together his views on diverse subjects, ranging from wickedly funny pen portraits of the sometimes loveable, usually despicable chumps who like to think of themselves as our political elite, and their bonkers schemes to save the world that are in fact likely to do us more harm than a pile of witches, to WMD, disaster movies, the pitfalls of 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here' and the high and mighty rhetoric of Obama, this is an absurdly entertaining and utterly indispensable collection from one of Britain's most brilliant satirists.