Oh, he’s a lovely chap who likes nothing more than practising the violin or sitting at his easel painting a little watercolour, but inside lurks abeast called Malcolm Tucker, who at any moment might possess the mild-mannered actor with a bout of ‘Come the f*** in or f*** the f*** off’, foul-mouthed insults that could devastate anyone unlucky enough to be in his firing range. We’d love Peter to turn Tucker on us and treat us mean to keep us keen. There’s something about The Thick of It (now ex) star’s razor-sharp similes and piercing put-downs that get us all aflutter and his coruscating exit speech, ‘Malcolm is not here, he left the building years ago... This is a husk…’ sent strange shivers down our spine. We’ll miss Malcolm but Peter, whom we’ll file under ‘P’ for ‘People we really shouldn’t fancy but do anyway’ (cf, Jeremy Paxman, Clare Balding), is soon to be giving Don Draper a run for his money as our fave Fifties fittie in the new series of The Hour, playing the incoming head of news. Maybe it’s time to say f***ity-bye to miserable Malcolm once and for all.
