Hugh Bonneville‘s bumbling and bemused Ian Fletcher is again. However this time, he is blundering his manner thru company crises around the pond to oversee the making plans of the FIFA International Cup. 

Ian has somewhat the CV. In Twenty Twelve, a mockumentary a couple of fictional committee tasked with making plans the 2012 Olympic Video games, he used to be Head of Deliverance of the Olympic Deliverance Fee. Its sequel, W1A, noticed him turn into the BBC’s Head of Values. Now, just about a decade later, Ian has launched into a brand new bankruptcy in Miami as Director of Integrity for the 2026 soccer event, which David Tennant’s narrator tells us is “a key put up”.

Fanatics of the primary two collection can be expecting extra of the similar as Ian is confronted with any other ragtag bunch of quirky characters with nonsense activity titles. However this time, his workers are way more direct, and in contrast to in W1A, no longer each and every thought is “good”.  

There may be the “most commonly Belgian” co-ordin­at­ing attache Eric van Dupuytrens (Alexis Micha­lik), who communicates in philosophical musings; the aptly named Phil Plank, an English former footballer; uber-enthusiastic American-born vp of sustainability and local weather technique Sarah Campbell; straight-talking New Yorker and head of criminal Nick Castellano; headstrong Mexican VP of Optics and Narrative Gabriela De Los angeles Rosa; and the crowd’s grounding power, Canadian logistics VP Owen Mitchell.

In his new function, Ian’s first problem is to lead the oversight staff against a choice on which American, Canadian or Mexican town will have to host the International Cup semi-finals. However the announcement is eclipsed by means of the paintings of the mildly frustrating Gen-Z social media staff, whose new sustainability marketing campaign primarily based round human waste, The Energy of Poop, is going viral on social media. 

Like its predecessors, Twenty Twenty Six cleverly mocks trendy management-speak with rhythmic pepperings of company jargon. Phrases like “completely,” “precisely” and “100 consistent with cent” are repeated meaninglessly, and the characters regularly interact in “sure, no” desk tennis. Whilst a laugh, those distinctly British conversational quirks do not somewhat have the similar impact when spoken with an American accessory.

There may be additionally the welcome return of Ian’s incompetent assistant Will Humphries (Hugh Skinner), who turns out simply as baffled as Ian by means of his arrival in Miami, having secured the activity due to his oldsters’ reference to Eric (“I feel it is one thing to do with horses”). As soon as once more, Will is by means of a ways the funniest personality within the display, even though maximum of his strains are permutations of “cool”, “yeah” and “crap”. 

The former two seasons are a masterclass in gazing British awkwardness and social etiquette, which is possibly why Hugh Bonneville and Hugh Skinner stay the stand-out stars in Twenty Twenty Six. 

If you liked Twenty Twelve and W1A, then you can be expecting extra of the similar from this comedy deal with. 

This evaluation used to be first printed in HELLO!’s What to Watch publication. Subscribe here to learn our evaluations early.

Twenty Twenty Six is to be had to move on BBC iPlayer.