At first, it’s as if Bean – a former stand-up who loves gags clever, coarse or corny – might have been watching too many episodes of TV sketch show Little Britain. Taking us into the offices of a nasty, formerly lefty tabloid called The Free Press, he introduces us to a gallery of vipers, weasels and leeches, caricatures all.

None is more odious than Billie Piper’s convincingly shallow and ruthless news editor, Paige Britain, a sultry, stiletto-stamping schemer who might as well sprout devil’s horns. Britain takes to phone-hacking like a duck to water. She gets into bed – literally – with the cops (the Assistant Commissioner of the Met, played by Oliver Chris, whose superior is an idiotic running joke) and seduces the political top-brass (Rupert Vansittart’s eminently amenable Tory toff PM-to-be Jonathan Whey).