Veep creator Armando Iannucci says these times call for Charles Dickens

IN 1837, CHARLES DICKENS MOVED INTO A NARrow terraced house north of Central London. 48 Doughty Street was the novelist’s home for only 2½ years, but they were productive ones—he wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby there.

Today, the building is a museum dedicated to the author and his work, and it was here in February that TIME met Armando Iannucci, the screenwriter and director whose newest film is an adaptation of Dickens’ releasing in the U.S. on Aug. 28. The house has been restored to how it might have looked when Dickens lived; his well-worn desk takes pride of place in the study, and the dining room is laid out as if for a supper party. When we met there, the museum was still open to the public so we retreated