IN THE LOOP is a foul-mouthed comedy that draws on non-specific events to create a world that is terrifyingly familiar: The US President and UK Prime Minister fancy a war, but not everyone agrees that war is a ‘good thing’. US General Miller (James Gandolfini – The Sopranos, The Taking Of Pelham 123) certainly doesn't think so and neither does the British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander – Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride and Prejudice). But when the mild-mannered minister inadvertently appears to back the war on prime-time television, he immediately attracts the attention of the PM’s venomously aggressive communications chief Malcolm Tucker (reprised from The Thick of It by Peter Capaldi), who latches onto him like a hawk. Soon, the Brits are in Washington, where diplomatic relations collide with trans-Atlantic spin doctors and Foster’s off-hand remark quickly spirals into an insurmountable ‘mountain of conflict’.