Twenty Twelve

Twenty Twelve
Genre	Mockumentary
Written by	John Morton
Directed by	John Morton
Starring	Hugh Bonneville Jessica Hynes Amelia Bullmore Olivia Colman Vincent Franklin Karl Theobald Morven Christie
Narrated by	David Tennant
Opening theme	"Let's Face the Music and Dance" sung by Nat King Cole
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	13
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jon Plowman
Producer(s)	Paul Schlesinger
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	BBC
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC Four (2011–2012) BBC Two (2012) BBC HD
Picture format	(SDTV) 576i (HDTV) 1080i
Audio format	Stereo
Original run	14 March 2011 (2011-03-14) – 24 July 2012 (2012-07-24)
External links
Website

Twenty Twelve was a BBC television comedy series written and directed by John Morton. Starring Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Hynes and Amelia Bullmore, the programme was a spoof on-location documentary (or mockumentary) following the organisation of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. It was first broadcast on UK television station BBC Four in March 2011 to coincide with the 500 day countdown to the opening ceremony.

Twenty Twelve gained mainly positive reviews from critics, and a four-part second series was announced on 15 April 2011,^[1] which began airing on 30 March 2012 on BBC Two.^[2] A further three episodes of series 2 began airing from 10 July 2012.^[3] The series' last episode was broadcast on 24 July 2012, three days before the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games.

Cast

• Hugh Bonneville as Ian Fletcher, Head of Deliverance of the Olympic Deliverance Commission
• Amelia Bullmore as Kay Hope, Head of Sustainability
• Olivia Colman as Sally Owen, Ian Fletcher's personal assistant
• Vincent Franklin as Nick Jowett, Head of Contracts
• Jessica Hynes as Siobhan Sharpe, Head of Brand
• Karl Theobald as Graham Hitchins, Head of Infrastructure
• Morven Christie as Fi Healey, Head of Legacy
• Samuel Barnett as Daniel Stroud, Ian Fletcher's personal assistant after Sally leaves

Plot

The series follows the trials of the management of the fictional Olympic Deliverance Commission (ODC), the body tasked to organise the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Over the series, the ODC have to overcome logistical difficulties, production errors, infrastructure problems and troublesome contributors. The main character is Ian Fletcher, the Head of Deliverance, who is in overall charge of the ODC, and is generally efficient but often has to clean up a PR disaster after the other managers make a mistake. A running thread in series one are the hints that his marriage to a high-flying lawyer is breaking down, which comes to a head in episode six. It is evident that his PA Sally is in love with him, although this remains unspoken.

Meanwhile, Siobhan Sharpe is the excitable, but ultimately clueless Head of Brand through her PR company Perfect Curve. She answers almost every problem with phrases that have almost no substance whatsoever, and never turns her phone off during meetings with the other managers. Consequently, the rest of the managers find her ideas and enthusiastic attitude tiresome, particularly Nick Jowett, Head of Contracts, a blunt Yorkshireman who generally opposes ideas without making alternative suggestions, whilst emphasising that he is from Yorkshire.

Kay Hope, Head of Sustainability, is in charge of sorting out what will happen to the buildings, stadia and other Olympic venues after the games. Hope is emphatic that Legacy is something separate from Sustainability although no one makes any attempt to differentiate these two apparently identical areas. In series two a new 'Head of Legacy' is appointed, whom Hope clashes with on virtually all subjects. She continually mentions that she is a single mother after a bitter divorce, and is paranoid about her public image. Finally, Head of Infrastructure Graham Hitchens gives the impression that he knows everything about the London transport and traffic systems, but evidently does not.

Episodes

Series 1

Series 2

Reviews

Critical reviews

Reviews for episode 1 were mixed, commenting that it was milder in its satire than they expected; Ed Cumming in The Telegraph stated "Perhaps it just needs some time to settle. Though it was very funny in parts, the first episode of Twenty Twelve suggests that the series, like the actual cost of the Olympics, might hit slightly wide of its ample target."^[8] Likewise, Sam Wollaston in The Guardian suggested that due to the participation of Seb Coe it was "on song": "Biting satire this isn't. It's nibbling satire, delivered by Garra Rufa fish...The Thick of It is a lot more entertaining...I don't think that politicians were removing their shoes, rolling up their trousers and queuing up for cameos in The Thick of It".^[9] Brian Viner, writing in The Independent was more impressed by Coe's cameo; "There is surely no other country in the world that would laugh at itself in this way, even persuading the vast project's principal mover-and-shaker, in our case the Rt Hon Lord Coe KBE, to participate in the joke". He went on to commend the series "...I was hooked anyway, by the mischief in John Morton's script and the beautifully nuanced performances of, in particular, Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes".^[10]

Brian Viner, reviewing the series as a whole stated the series was "always amusing and sporadically very funny... It's hard to think of a spoof documentary that has been more fortuitously timed than Twenty Twelve."^[11]

Real-life similarities

It was widely commented upon in the press that the day after the broadcast of the first episode, which features problems with the 1,000 days countdown clock, the real-life clock in Trafalgar Square broke soon after it had been launched by Lord Coe and London mayor Boris Johnson.^[12]

An additional coincidence occurred when some of the first athletes to arrive in London for the Olympics suffered delays; their bus drivers were unfamiliar with London and unable to find the Olympic Park in scenes that closely resembled the plot of episode 2.^[13]

A further similarity was also noted in the plot of the final episode, which involved the idea of "The Big Bong", put forward by a conceptual artist, that everyone around the UK could play as many instruments as they like to signal the start of the Opening Ceremony; which is almost exactly what was asked of the nation – "to ring thousands of bells at the same time, whether schools bells, church bells, town hall bells, bicycle bells or door bells" at 8.12 AM on the first day of the Olympic Games. The idea, "All the Bells" is the work of Turner Prize-winning artist and musician Martin Creed.^[14]

The Games plagiarism accusation

Twenty Twelve has been criticised as bearing a strong resemblance to the Australian mockumentary series The Games, a similar series set before the 2000 Sydney Olympics.^[15] Writer of The Games John Clarke said, "We worked very hard on that project and we had long conversations with these people who've now done a show like that in Britain".^[16][16][17]

The BBC denied claims of plagiarism. "It is a very different show, the only similarities between them are that they are both set around the Olympics," a corporation source said.^[18] Clarke's website later called The Games' writers "John [Clarke] and Ross Stevenson, who run a charitable institute supplying formats to British television".^[19]

Awards

The programme was the winner of the Best Sitcom category at the British Comedy Awards 2011,^[20] while Jessica Hynes received the Best Comedy Performance award for her role from the Royal Television Society.^[21] For his role in Twenty Twelve Osy Ikhile was nominated for "Best TV Comedy Performance" at the Black International Film Festival and Music Video & Screen Awards.^[22]

In May 2013, the programme was awarded title of 'Best Sitcom' at the annual BAFTA awards, with star Olivia Colman also picking up the award for 'Best Female Comedy Performance', a category in which co-star Jessica Hynes was also nominated. Hugh Bonneville also received a nomination for his role of Head of Deliverance, Ian Fletcher.^[23]

DVD release

On 23 October 2012 BBC Home Entertainment released the entire series in a two-disc DVD set.^[24]

Sequel

After the final episode had aired, there was speculation in the media about a third series with the team liaising with the organisation team of the Rio de Janeiro games in 2016, or becoming management consultants.^[25] When asked about whether the hit show could return, main star Bonneville said, "Absolutely. They could go and help with the organisation of the Rio Games in 2016...but ultimately, this is a crack team that could go anywhere and manage anything – the City, say, or the armed services. The NHS also needs rebranding. They could get Ian in to announce, 'If health is about anything, it's about managing expectations. We have got to get people to appreciate there are a lot of positive things about ill health. We need to make it sexy'."^[26]

A sequel was announced by the BBC in late 2013 for broadcast in 2014. Named W1A, it follows Ian Fletcher (Bonneville) and Siobhan Sharpe (Jessica Hynes) as they follow new careers as part of the BBC management team.

See also

• Olympic Delivery Authority
• London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games

References

External links

• Twenty Twelve at BBC Programmes
• Twenty Twelve at the British Comedy Guide
• Twenty Twelve at the Internet Movie Database