It’s a sorry state of affairs when you realise you’re worth more dead than you are alive. It’s even worse when your own brother acts as your spokesperson, selling you down the river without giving you so much as a bodyboard to keep youself afloat. And who was it who said that blood was thicker than water? Peepli [Live], a comic satire, explores the notion of “farmer suicides” and how the media can expose a serious issue and turn it into a speculative event until everyone’s talking about it.

The British talent for satire is brilliantly displayed in In the Loop. This film spin-off from the BBC series The Thick of It chronicles the life and times of several US and UK government figureheads in the days before the invasion of Iraq. The cracking script and brilliant cast keep the laughs coming hard and fast, while director Armando Iannucci’s hand-held camera techniques create an almost uncomfortably close-to-the-bone sense of realism. If you missed this film at the cinema, it’s well worth grabbing on DVD for the best laughs you’ve had in ages and one-liners you’ll be repeating for weeks.