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Alan Partridge

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Alan Partridge: Every Ruddy Word

Alan Partridge is a fictional character portrayed by English comedian Steve Coogan. Two radio and three television series – as well as several TV and radio specials, plus appearances on BBC's Comic Relief – have tracked this spoof television and radio presenter through his career.

Personality

Alan appears a rather insecure, superficial and shallow person, concerned largely with the status and level of his fame and, to a lesser extent, the material possessions this allows him to acquire (such as his beloved Rover and Lexus cars and Bang & Olufsen stereo systems). From I'm Alan Partridge onwards, most of his life is consumed by his desire to get back onto television in any way, shape or form, and the various (frequently disastrous) attempts he makes to achieve this goal. He is frequently found reciting surreal, and ever more desperate, ideas for programmes (several involving Jet from Gladiators) into a dictaphone. At times he appears to be a somewhat ghoulish character, and displays deep insensitivity to social norms. He seems unable to forge genuine friendships, usually only needing a sympathetic ear for his comic banality.

Beyond this, Alan doesn't appear to have a particularly rich or detailed personal life, and often whiles away the hours fixating on trivialities. In one episode, whilst still living at the Linton Travel Tavern, he walks to a service station to acquire twelve bottles of windscreen washer fluid for no apparent reason. Most of his interests appear to reflect his taste for the superficial and flashy; it is perhaps notable that he once described Paul McCartney's band Wings as "the band the Beatles could have been". He is also fond of the music of Kate Bush, and, of course, the Electric Light Orchestra.

Politically, Alan leans towards the conservative. His favourite newspaper is the Daily Mail, a right-leaning publication ("arguably", he claims, "the best newspaper in the world"). Sexually, he appears rather repressed, illustrated by the lengths he goes to deny any interest in Bangkok lady-boys ("fascinating creatures, though. Looks like a lady, but really it's a man. I don't find them attractive, it's just confusing"). He describes himself as being a 'homosceptic', but appears to possess some hidden homoerotic or bisexual tendencies; in the first series of I'm Alan Partridge, he frequently finds himself fantasising about performing an erotic dance for a selection of men (usually those who can help further his career in some way, such as Tony Hayers) in a peephole Pringle jumper and vulcanised rubber pants.

Misogyny, to a certain extent, could also feature quite markedly in Alan's life. He does tend to "objectify" women, without really seeing them as people. Leaving aside his dreadful relationship with his wife, every woman he meets ends up ridiculing, ignoring, or detesting him, because of his manner toward them. Sonja's scatterbrained practicality, and the fact that she comes from a different culture, and doesn't understand all the nuances of the English language gives her a certain protection from his ways, but it's clear that the affection is not really returned by him. "I love you .... in a way", he says at one point, and after comparing her to a Bond "femme fatale" he mentions that he "doesn't trust her". At the end of series 2, when she is evicted from her flat, he lets her stay in the caravan - "if they can come to some arrangement". Curiously, the only woman he gets on with, if one could call it that, is Lynn .... a mother figure.

He can be prudish, too, as when he insists on "letting battle commence" with his soon-to-be-unemployed receptionist with the room in total darkness, and then he gets very upset when she decides to spice things up a bit by applying chocolate mousse to his person. And when it turns out that his new, best friend Dan and his wife are swingers ("they're sex people, Lynn! They're sex swappers!") he can't get out of the house fast enough.

He apparently considers Dave Lee Travis to be his nemesis.

Early years

In his fictional world, Alan was born Alan Gordon Partridge on April 2 1955 in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England and spent his childhood in Norwich. Alan was bullied at school by a boy named Stephen McCoombe, who called him 'smelly Alan Fartridge'. At Sir William Dunwoody's High School he was known as 'Alison Partridge'. 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.

Alan also revealed his O-level and A-level results in one of his radio shows (the certificates of which he admitted to having framed in his office). He achieved 4 Bs and 2 Cs at O-level and a C in Art and a B in General Studies at A-level (he dropped French).

Radio

After graduating, and working his way upwards from a position as a DJ on hospital radio, 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 he also developed his amazing talent for mixed and/or nonsensical metaphors.

Alan got his first starring role in 1992 as host of BBC Radio 4's Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge (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 junior government minister and, in the series finale, his guest Lord Morgan of Glossop died from an apparent heart attack.

There was also a one off spoof-documentary about the show called Knowing, Knowing Me, Knowing You. It gave a behind-the-scenes look at how the show was put together and the antagonism between Alan and those who worked for him, as well as giving insight into the problems with his marriage to his wife, Carol.

Television

The Day Today

On The Hour transferred to television as The Day Today in 1994, where Alan continued as the inept sports reporter ('This is Sports Desk... I'm Alan Partridge').

Knowing Me, Knowing You

The transition to television was to be a success for Alan and was swiftly followed by a television version of 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 the sixth episode, Alan accidentally shot dead one of his guests (Forbes McAllister) on air while examining one of Lord Byron's duelling pistols. Alan was later cleared of any wrong-doing by an internal BBC investigation.

In reality, KMKYWAP was a huge success; in the fictional world of Alan Partridge, it suffered from terrible ratings. This was because of 'poor scheduling' (The show was aired at the same time as the News at Ten) and Alan's PA, Lynn, claimed that "the show started badly and went downhill from there". In the end the show was taken off the air at the end of the first series.

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 Schneider). Alan, with a characteristic lack of subtlety, was seen probing for a new series of KMKYWAP. However, the show was an unmitigated disaster for Alan, as his attempt at product placement was blatantly exposed, and the show climaxed with Alan punching both a man in a wheelchair and Tony Hayers (twice) with a turkey stuck on his hand. As Alan cried at the end of the show, ‘I'll never chat again’, Mick Hucknall of Simply Red played the show out. It was the beginning of the end of his time at BBC television (he was "kept on the books", as it were, for a short while, but after a particularly harrowing meeting with Hayers at the BBC cafeteria (which involved assault by cheese) he was left in no doubt that his BBC TV career was over).

I'm Alan Partridge

Partridge next appeared in I'm Alan Partridge (1997), a look behind the scenes of his rapidly failing career. In this television series, he is seen having gained a slot on the fictional 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 Maxwell. In the final episode, Tony Hayers died after a fall from a roof, and one of Alan's old friends, Chris Feather, took over as Head of Programmes at the BBC. However, at the decisive moment when the new executive was about to sign a five year contract, he keeled over and died, forcing Alan to forge the dead man's signature.

(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 (played by Felicity Montagu who went on to play a vicar's wife in Nighty Night (2004)), 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’, foreshadowing his mental breakdown in the second series of I'm Alan Partridge. A simulcast between BBC Two and Radio Norwich, Alan appears incoherent and incapable of keeping track of the format of his own show. A second Comic Relief appearance followed in 2001, showing him interviewing a boxing manager, played by Peter Kay. Eventually, this resulted in Alan taking on one of the boxers in the ring and being beaten by the boxer, the manager and his friend Michael.

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 to let him go.

Alan returned to radio, securing the ‘third best slot on Radio Norwich’, presenting 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.

In the period from his time at the Linton Travel Tavern to his residence in the temporary 'static home’, Alan suffered a mental breakdown and put on weight, or as he put it, was ‘clinically fed up' and 'repellent to women for two years'. This collapse culminated in Alan driving a Vauxhall Vectra to Dundee in his bare feet, while gorging himself on Toblerones (in a similar incident, Alan recounts throwing all his tax receipts off a North Sea ferry). 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 ("back of the net!"). This period in Alan's life is documented in his autobiography Bouncing Back, which Alan claims has been described as "Lovely stuff" by entertainer Shakin' Stevens.

Memorable moments of this series include Alan dry-vomiting his way through a speech about fireplaces; mistakenly getting involved with swingers; attacking a six-foot stuffed Beefeater bear; his summing up the entire opening of The Spy Who Loved Me in less than a minute; Lynn's Baptism at her Baptist church and, of course, the sad pulping of his autobiography which, despite taking up four weeks of his life to write, simply wasn't selling well (every anecdote ended with the phrase "Needless to say, I had the last laugh".) Unfortunately, Alan tells us, 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; the credits listed it as being executive produced by Alan himself.

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".

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 Milkybar Kid (played by Simon Pegg). This involved a lot of recycled material from previous live appearances. 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 discussed, but no firm plans, script, or rules of the show exist.

However in August 2004 a small piece appeared in the Metro newspaper 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". Other sources confirm the film will be going ahead and ITV has reported that Victoria Beckham will be playing a ‘demanding diva’ in the film. Coogan has since denied that Beckham will appear.

In mid 2005, the Internet Movie Database submitted that an Alan Partridge movie was in pre-production, and rumours circulated that it may involve a plot with al-Qaeda as a feature, or Alan as a go-between in a hostage situation of some sort, but this speculation has not been verified.

Although not appearing per se, Alan Partridge does feature in the 2006 film, A Cock and Bull Story. In a complex, multi-layered film which blurs the viewers' perception of fact and fiction, Steve Coogan plays an egotistical, philandering film actor (called ‘Steve Coogan’) who is most famous for his television work in the guise of ‘Alan Partridge’. Despite his best efforts to leave Partridge in the past and move onto new projects, other characters in the film constantly remind Coogan of Partridge, even going so far as to mimic Partridge to mock Coogan. In one incredibly self-referential scene, famous journalist Tony Wilson (whom Coogan played in the film 24 Hour Party People), playing a journalist called ‘Tony Wilson’, insists on interviewing Coogan's character, actor ‘Steve Coogan’, in Alan Partridge's ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ style. The self-referencing here is particularly dense because Coogan's earlier portrayal of Wilson had been reminiscent of Alan Partridge, and it has been speculated that the Partridge character was partly based on the real Wilson , .

Character inspiration

The character is believed by some to be based on British television host Richard Madeley. However, Nick Owen - who, like Partridge, began as a sports reporter and moved into a sort of "Middle England" chat show format - is perhaps a more likely inspiration. Some have also pointed out that Fred Dinenage, who has had a varied career as a presenter, including being a game show host, newsreader and relief presenter for ITV's World of Sport, has arguably behaved in an 'Alan Partridge' fashion when dealing with members of the public on TV. Media personality Tony Wilson, who began his TV life as a reporter on the BBC local station which the young Coogan used to watch is another possibility. Judging from the fictionalized accounts shown on 24 Hour Party People, starring Coogan, it's easy to see why.

It is likely that Alan Partridge is not based on any one particular personality, but rather a composite caricature of various presenters from British television.

List of appearances

External links

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