I'm Not Alan Partridge, thankfully (Im Alan Partridge !)

Member Name: Mioliere

Product:	Im Alan Partridge !
Date:	30/10/08 (125 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Many - great acting, great script-writing and the talent that is Steve Coogan

Disadvantages: Not enough episodes

I'm Alan Partridge - well, I'm glad I'm not, but what a character. In real life, he's the sort of chap you would either love or hate; I'm sure his mother must love him.

Played to perfection by Steve Coogan, Alan Partridge is squirmingly embarrassing even when he's attempting to be normal. He is the master at digging himself deeper and deeper into the mire to try and get himself out of trouble.

Partridge lives in Norfolk, (I've lived there too, briefly, and can just imagine him being one of the local features) and works for Radio Norwich. He has his own show in the 'graveyard' slot late in the evening when not many people will be listening. It is a great come-down from the days when he had his own television talk show and he is desperate to get another one but no-one will give him the chance. He has awful features in his show such as 'Alan's Deep Bath' which makes no sense at all; he has radio phone-ins that don't amount to anything and silly contests such as 'Who makes the best lord?'. At the end of each programme he hands over to a presenter, Dave Clifton, played by Phil Cornwell, who is much cooler than him, which irritates him greatly and he tries very hard to put the chap down on air, but it is Partridge himself who ends up the bigger fool.

While all this is hilarious, it is his life outside the radio station that provides the biggest laughs. In one series he is living in a drab soulless Travel Tavern, one of those plastic motels that you wouldn't choose to spend more than one night in, his main friend being the manic former soldier, a Geordie called Michael, played by Simon Greenall, who is the handyman at the tavern as well as part-time assistant at the local BP garage. Partridge has a much put-upon and very timid PA called Lynn, played by Felicity Montagu, to whom he is extremely insulting - you wonder why she sticks at the job because he is so obnoxious to her. She manages to find him extra work doing corporate videos.

The next series finds him living in a static caravan while he is having a house built next door. Now he has been joined by his girlfriend, Sonja, played by Amelia Bullmore. She has a very strong Ukranian accent and an immature sense of humour; she thinks it's funny not only to put a whoopee cushion under his seat or serve him a plastic fried egg, but to keep on resurrecting the same things and expecting him to find it just as funny each time. She laughs like a maniac each time she does it and it slowly drives him to distraction. He keeps her in his life because she is 14 years younger than him which gives him great street-cred - or so he thinks.

One of the best episodes and one which shows just how talented an actor Steve Coogan is, is one in which he tries to climb over the railings to get into a conference centre for which he has been booked as a speaker. He tries the intercom to get security to open the gate but he always pretends he's up to no good and, on this occasion, they didn't relent and let him in. So he climbs the railings and falls, impaling his foot on a spike. Blood is shown pouring from the foot but he still goes ahead with the presentation, lapsing in and out of consciousness and vomiting, while hugging the lecturn for support. No-one in the audience can see his foot and he just looks as if he is drunk. Only Steve Coogan himself could have pulled off such a scene so well and only Alan Partridge would have found himself in such a position.

The script-writing for the show is brilliant, having been written by Coogan together with Armando Iannucci and Peter Baynham, with many phrases which have become common-place in the English language, perhaps one of the most well-known being 'sa-a-a-d', which Partridge uses to great effect when he comes across someone or something that is not as 'cool' as him.

All in all, I think this is a fantastic original and inventive series and I'd be delighted if they commissioned a third series. I would love to know what Alan Partridge is up to right now!

Summary: Original and very very funny