Director Armando Iannucci, a prolific TV producer/director/writer (I'm Alan Partridge (1997-2002), among others) who was born in Glasgow to a Scottish mother and Italian father, brought from his BBC series The Thick of It (2005-7) his four fellow writers (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, and Tony Roche) as well as actors Capaldi and Higgins, who play the same characters Malcolm Tucker and Jamie MacDonald, respectively. Chris Addison (Toby) was also in The Thick of It, but as a different character. I can't comment on it, because I never saw it (I would like to, now), nor the Alan Partridge series and movies, though I had heard of the latter.
Tom Hollander (Gosford Park (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean II and III (2006-7)) is the British diplomat bumbling his way back and forth across the pond, Addison his hapless assistant, Gina McKee (you've seen her face but wouldn't remember her name from Atonement, HBO's Tsunami (2007), Notting Hill (1999) and others) is the ineffectual voice of reason, and Capaldi's and Higgins' characters are supposed to do damage control for the Prime Minister (whom we never see) but mostly wreak havoc with their hilarious verbal abuse. Steve Coogan (who played Alan Partridge in every incarnation, the director in Tropic Thunder, the lead in Hamlet 2, and a brilliantly awkward version of himself in Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)) has a cameo wearing a watch cap and complaining about a wall.
On this side of the Atlantic we have Karen Clarke (Mimi Kennedy, the mom in Dharma & Greg (1997-2002)) and her hapless assistant Liza (Anna Chlumsky, THE girl in My Girl and My Girl 2 (1991 and 94), David Rasche (Burn After Reading and the wonderful Scotsman-in-America comedy The Big Tease (1999) with Craig Ferguson) as the Senator and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano, now and forever) as the complacent general. Smart, lewd, nasty, and side-splitting.
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