OXFORD’S adopted son, TV comedy writer Armando Iannucci, is on the up with new shows, a movie and an OBE.

The 48-year-old Scot has landed a stateside hit with political comedy Veep and is preparing a new series of Whitehall satire The Thick Of It.

Add to that work on a long-awaited movie of presenter-from-hell Alan Partridge and that appearance in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List, and Mr Iannucci is cementing his reputation as one of the UK’s top comedy talents.

The comedian studied at University College, Oxford, but is best known in the city for his role as the patron of the Silver Star unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital, where three of his children were born.

He has spearhead fundraising for the specialist unit.

Mr Iannucci said he was thrilled to be returning to Alan Partridge – portrayed by comic Steve Coogan – almost two decades after the character first appeared on Radio 4.

He this week revealed the film would see Partridge fight the takeover of his local digital TV channel by a media giant.

He said: “We’re still at the writing stage and we’ll make sure we’re happy with the script first before we do anything.”

Veep recently began on US channel HBO and has been renewed for a second series and follows the travails of Vice President Selina Meyer, portrayed by Seinfeld actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

He said: “When you’re making it, all you can do is try and make sure you think it’s funny and you’re happy with it.

“Once it goes out, it has a life of its own and how people react to it is their privilege.

Mr Iannucci said: “It can be that in the big networks everything has to go through a committee of execs, but they said, ‘We’re asking you to make it because we like what you do’. So they just left us alone.”

Such is the success of The Thick of It, that “omnishambles”, a phrase coined by spin-doctor-from-hell Malcolm Tucker, was used by Labour leader in the Commons to attack Prime Minister David Cameron.

Mr Iannucci said: “Sometimes you write things just because you think they’d be a good story, and then a politician will come up afterwards and say, ‘How did you find that out? I thought we’d kept that quiet’.

“And you think, ‘You’re not telling me that’s true is it?’”

He said of the forthcoming fourth series: “We’ve just finished filming. It’s all in the can.

“There’s a new Government, it’s in coalition, our previous cast are in opposition and we go backwards and forwards between the two.”

The satirist hit headlines following a public Twitter spat with former Labour spin chief Alastair Campbell over his OBE, after being accused of joining the “establishment he claims to deride”.

Mr Campbell said “three little letters can have more impact than you realise” to which Mr Iannucci, ever the razor sharp wit, shot back: “WMD” – the shorthand for weapons of mass destruction – and the reason the Labour Government gave for going to war with Iraq.