Alan Partridge
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Alan Partridge (born April 2 1955) is a fictional character portrayed by British comedian Steve Coogan. Two radio and three television series have presented a spoof television and radio presenter through his career - as well as several TV and radio specials, plus appearances on BBC's Comic Relief.
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Early years
According to the fictional world of Alan Partridge, he was born Alan Gordon Partridge, and spent his childhood in Norwich. Alan was bullied at school by a boy named Stephen McCoombe, who called him 'smelly Alan Fartridge'. Alan won an essay writing competition on the subject of sport (his first foray into the sporting world) and later went on to attend East Anglia Polytechnic.
After graduating, and working his way upwards from hospital radio DJ, Alan garnered a slot presenting sports news on BBC Radio 4's On the Hour programme (1991) presented by Chris Morris. In On The Hour Alan suffered from a severe lack of any sporting knowledge. And it is here that he first developed his amazing talent for mixed and/or non-sensical metaphors.
Knowing Me, Knowing You
Alan got his first starring role in 1992 as host of BBC Radio 4's Knowing Me Knowing You, a spoof chat show with fictional guests. Alan managed to offend people on his show who would then attempt to disgrace the host. During his tenure on the chat show, Alan hit a child genius, unknowingly took cocaine, lost his wife's car in a bet, was openly homophobic, forced the resignation of a (fictional) Junior Government Minister and had one of his guests drop dead on air.
There was also a one off spoof-documentary about the show called Knowing, Knowing Me, Knowing You, which gave a behind-the-scenes look at how the show was put together, and the antagonism between Alan and those who worked for him - and gave us a small insight into the problems with his marriage to his wife Carol.
Television
On The Hour transferred to television as The Day Today in 1994, where Alan continued as the Sports Reporter ('This is Sports Desk... I'm Alan Partridge'). The transition to television was to be a success for Alan and was swiftly followed by a television version of Knowing Me, Knowing You, this time called Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge. The format was largely the same as the radio show, with the addition of a 'house band' under the directorship of Glen Ponder (played by musical comedian Steve Brown). In reality, KMKYWAP was a huge success - but in the fictional world of Alan Partridge, it suffered from terrible ratings. In the end the show was taken off the air at the end of the first series - due to the fact that Alan had accidentally shot dead one of his guests. (He was later cleared by an official inquiry.)
In 1995, Alan hosted a Christmas Special of KMKYWAP, humorously titled Knowing Me, Knowing Yule. One of his guests was the (fictional) Director of Programming at the BBC, Tony Hayers (later to become Alan's nemesis, played by David Schnieder). Alan, very unsubtly, could be seen probing for a new series of KMKYWAP. However, the show was an unmitigated disaster for Alan, as his product placement was blatantly exposed, and the show climaxed with Alan losing the plot altogether and punching both a man in a wheelchair and Tony Hayers (twice). As Alan cried at the end of the show, "I'll never chat again", while Simply Red played the show out. It was the end of his chat-show career at the BBC.
I'm Alan Partridge
Partridge next appeared in I'm Alan Partridge (1997), a fly-on-the-wall look behind the scenes of his rapidly failing career. In this television series, he is seen having gained a slot on the fictional BBC Radio Norwich. He continues to cause offence, this time mainly to his listeners and also his colleague Dave Clifton. Alan had by this stage taken up residence in the equally fictional Linton Travel Tavern, which was "equi-distant between London and Norwich". The first episode featured Alan meeting with Tony Hayers, begging for a new series on the BBC. Hayers was not impressed, and Alan had to wrap up his production company Peartree Productions, firing all its staff. During his time at the Linton Travel Tavern, we discovered more about Alan's failed marriage, his children (Fernando and Denise) and of course his obsession with "Bangkok Chickboys". Alan was also nearly kidnapped by his 'number one fan', a crazed lunatic called Jed. In the final episode, Tony Hayers died after a fall from a roof, and one of Alan's old friends took over as Head of Programmes at the BBC. However, at the decisive moment when the new Head of Programmes was about to sign a five year contract, he keeled over and died, forcing Alan to forge the dead man's signature.
(Please Note: in the fictional world of Alan Partridge, this was not a documentary, but actually a 'post-documentary'. In the commentary on the DVD, Alan explains that all the events depicted in the series actually occurred, but everyone in the show, apart from himself and his Personal Assistant Lynn Benfield, were actors hired to portray the events in the Linton Travel Tavern after they had actually occurred.)
Alan's next appearance was in a 1999 half hour special filmed for Comic Relief in which Alan started to lose the plot, forshadowing the mental breakdown in the second series of I'm Alan Patridge. A simulcast between BBC2 and Radio Norwich, Alan appears incoherant and incapable of keeping track of the format of his own show.
Coogan was apparently reluctant to continue playing the character, but returned for a second series of I'm Alan Partridge in 2002. This time around, Alan was temporarily living in a caravan while waiting for his new house to be built. Despite his five-year contract with the BBC, according to Alan there was "bad blood" between them and they were "shits", so they had let him go.
Alan was at this time still working on the radio, but this time he had secured the "third best slot on Radio Norwich", presenting as he does Norfolk Nights, a big leap from his former timeslot of 4 to 7am, when he presented Up With the Partridge. Alan also presents a military based quiz show called Skirmish on the (fictional) cable station UK Conquest, and has a deal with Meteor Productions to make the Crash! Bang! Wallop!... What a Video/Scum on the Run series of car crash videos, and has produced a poorly selling autobiography called Bouncing Back.
In the period from his time at the Linton Travel Tavern to his residence in the "temporary static home", Alan unfortunately suffered a severe mental breakdown and put on a lot of weight, or as he put it, he was "clinically fed up for two years". This collapse culminated in Alan driving to Dundee in his bare feet, while gorging himself on Toblerones. However, by 2002, his life was firmly back on track, save for the odd glitch. He even had a Ukrainian girlfriend called Sonja, who was 33 years old - 14 years younger than himself.
Memorable moments of this series include Alan dry-vomiting his way through a speech about fireplaces, Alan mistakenly getting involved in the world of swingers, Alan attacking a six-foot stuffed Beefeater bear, Lynn's Christening at her Baptist church and of course, the sad pulping of his autobiography which, despite him spending four weeks of his life writing, simply wasn't selling well. It seems the general public was more concerned with buying gangster autobiographies like Bad Slags.
Anglian Lives
In 2003, Alan again returned to our screen in a half-hour special of Anglian Lives, a fictional regional BBC show. This was presented by Ray Woollard (Peter Baynham) and 'Digital Dave', and was basically a sycophantic look at Alan's career, past and present.
Future Alan
Anglian Lives was the last time Alan Partridge appeared on TV in his own programme. It is unknown whether he will return, but writer Armando Iannucci says it is "doubtful".
However in August 2004 a small piece appeared in the newspaper Metro (not known for its accuracy) which claimed that: "Steve Coogan got the green light from a US studio to play the spoof DJ on the big screen." Coogan reportedly said: "It's always been my plan to make Alan go global. It's what he lives for really, not just doing the show on Radio Norwich." It now (June 2005) seems that the film will be going ahead as ITV have reported that Victoria Beckham will be playing a "demanding diva" in the film.
In 2004 Coogan also gave an interview with Now magazine, and when asked "Is it true that you're killing off Alan Partridge?", Coogan replied: "No, not at all. What's he up to at the moment? Well, I'd say he's being cryogenically preserved next to Walt Disney. Don't worry - when the day comes that I feel like I need to do something else with him, I'll defrost him and make him funny again."
This occurred briefly for Comic Relief 2005, when Alan appeared to interview a grown up, openly gay Milky Bar Kid (played by Simon Pegg). This involved a lot of recycled material. However, there was some bizarre homoeroticism between Alan and the 'Milky Bar Kid' which resulted in Alan agreeing to rent a caravan and go hiking with him.
Armando Iannucci hinted in a BBC Radio 2 interview with Jonathan Ross in May 2005 that the idea of making a one-off special episode of Skirmish (Alan's fictional military based game show on 'UK Conquest') has been floated, but no firm plans, script, or rules of the show exist.
List of appearances
- On the Hour (BBC Radio 4, series) 1991
- On the Hour (BBC Radio 4, series) 1992
- Knowing Me, Knowing You (BBC Radio 4, series) 1992
- Knowing, Knowing Me, Knowing You (BBC Radio 4, spoof documentary) 1992
- The Day Today (BBC TWO, spoof news series) 1994
- Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge (BBC TWO) 1994
- A Christmas Ramble (BBC TWO, spoof documentary) 1994
- Comic Relief (BBC ONE, with John Thomson) 1995
- Knowing Me, Knowing Yule with Alan Partridge (BBC TWO, Xmas special) 1995
- The Big Snog (Live show in support of gay rights) 1996
- I'm Alan Partridge (BBC TWO, series) 1997
- Clive Anderson: All Talk (BBC ONE, spoof interview) 1997
- Election Night Armistice (BBC TWO, political satire show) 1997
- Brit Awards (ITV, presenting award for Best Video to the 'not unattractive' All Saints) 1998
- Steve Coogan Live: The Man Who Thinks He's It (Live show) 1998
- Comic Relief (BBC TWO, with Bryan Ferry) 1999
- Comedy Awards (performing a duet with Elton John) 2000
- Comic Relief (BBC ONE, featuring Peter Kay) 2001
- I'm Alan Partridge (BBC TWO, series) 2002
- Anglian Lives (BBC TWO, spoof career retrospective - also featuring Peter Baynham) 2003
- Comic Relief (BBC ONE, monologue; KMKY-style (fictional) interview featuring Simon Pegg) 2005
External links
- BBC Official Alan Partridge Site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/partridge/)
- Alan Partridge Network (http://www.alanpartridge.net)
- Alan Attack (http://www.alanattack.co.uk/) Excellent Fansite
- Dedicated Alan Partridge Site (http://www.alan-partridge.co.uk)
- British Sitcom Guide (http://www.sitcom.co.uk/alan_partridge)
- Phill.co.uk Comedy Guide (http://www.phill.co.uk/comedy/knowing/)
- BBC Comedy Guide (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/k/knowingmeknowing_7771710.shtml)