The 6th Annual Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing

Oh, 2020, you’re finally over. And that can mean only one thing: it’s time to award the annual Strong Language honors for excellence in swearing. This is the sixth year that we’ve bestowed the highly prestigious Tucker Awards. (You can take a walk down memory lane by checking out our previous roundups, from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.) Regular readers will know that the awards are named in honor of the patron saint of Strong Language, Malcolm Tucker, the super-sweary political spin doctor played by Peter Capaldi in the BBC series The Thick of It and the film In the Loop.

Even though series creator Armando Iannucci continues to maintain that The Thick of It won’t be making a comeback, Tucker’s spirit was alive and well in 2020. In fact, a clip from the show, with Tucker declaring “a fucking lockdown” in the office, was used as a public-service announcement by the BBC back in March soon after the U.K. government announced the first stay-at-home order of the pandemic.

The BBC is now running this as a public information film between some of its programmes. pic.twitter.com/L92EuU17nk

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) March 26, 2020

We can only imagine how Tucker would have handled this fucking omnishambles of a year. Let’s get this shitshow on the road.

The 5th Annual Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing

With the calendar turning on another year (and another decade), it’s time once again for the annual Strong Language honors for excellence in swearing. For the past half-decade, Strong Language has been on the scene, tracking all the highlights in low language. (Check out our previous roundups from 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.) As always, the awards are named in honor of the patron saint of Strong Language, Malcolm Tucker, the endlessly quotable antihero played by Peter Capaldi in the BBC political satire The Thick of It and the film followup In the Loop.

Lately, Capaldi has reunited with Armando Iannucci, the creator of The Thick of It (as well as the equally sweary Veep) in the new film The Personal History of David Copperfield. Even though a different Dickensian adaptation, BBC One’s A Christmas Carol, managed to slip in some swearing, Capaldi’s Mr. Micawber is obscenity-free, so we’ll have to keep the spirit of Malcolm Tucker alive ourselves. As Malcolm would say, come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off.

The 4th Annual Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing

It is once again my solemn duty to present the annual Strong Language honors for excellence in swearing, named for our patron saint Malcolm Tucker, Peter Capaldi’s paragon of sweariness as seen on BBC’s The Thick of It, the cinematic offshoot In the Loop, and countless YouTube montages ever since.

This is the fourth time the Tucker Awards have been bestowed on worthy recipients — feel free to take a stroll back in time and peruse the winners of 2015, 2016, and 2017.  But as the calendar turns on 2018, let’s get down to fucking business.

Presenting the 3rd Annual Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing

It’s become our annual tradition here on Strong Language to hand out awards for the best in swearing over the past year. (See the honors for 2015 here and 2016 here.)  The Tucker Awards are named after the patron saint of Strong Language, Malcolm Tucker, the super-sweary political fixer from the BBC’s The Thick of It  (and the film spinoff In the Loop), as portrayed by Peter Capaldi.

The 2nd Annual Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing

Last year we introduced a year-end roundup celebrating the best in sweary language: The Tucker Awards. The Tuckers are named after the one and only Malcolm Tucker, Peter Capaldi’s gloriously obscene character from the BBC’s political satire The Thick of It and the big-screen version In the Loop.

Let’s get started with 2016’s best moments in swearing. As Mr. Tucker would say, come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off.