Up with the Partridge! (Im Alan Partridge !)

Member Name: excelsior81

Product:	Im Alan Partridge !
Date:	03/08/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some of the best comedy writing ever

Disadvantages: Six episodes is nto enough

Steve Coogan has produced some great comedy characters over the last few years. I am a huge fan of many of them (including the lovely Pualine Calf) but few of them have the popularity that Alan Partridge has, which continues to be a huge success with high ratings for re runs on digital channels.

The character of Alan Partridge is almost like an amalgamation of evrything bad about television and the status it provides, with a hint of desperation. Imagine a mad scientist in his (or her) lab creating a monster to dominate our tv screens with taudry television...poor dress sense, no real understanding of topics and current events beyond your own very limited understanding and a total disregard for your guests and their stories...and there you have it...Alan Partridge.

Alan starte doff on Radio for with the brilliantly hilarious 'Knowing me -Knowing you - he actually had plans to use the same title for a tv series about ill health 'knowing M E knowing you' in the future, just to illustrate how his mind works. The format for these shows was simple. Guests would come on stage to a well known Abba song and then he would interview them.....albeit badly. Usually he would start with a 'what do you do?' question and each show would end with 'and on that bombshell....'. The format for it was simple and transferred well to television. The first series focussed upon his chat show and quintessentially exposed the character as a bigot, racist and lacking any intelligence at all...hence why we all loved him!

There was ultimately a huge fall from grace when a guest died on the last show and the ratings...declined to an all time low.

So we then move into I am Alan Partridge which focussed upon Alan and his ailing career. For a man who has lost everything he appears not to be bitter...but secretly you can tell that he wants everyone else to share in his misery.

Alan is now living in a Travel Tavern. He has moved out of his house as his with has kicked him out an dmoved in his personal trainer. His children (Fernando and Denise) do not really want to have anything to do with him. The only person totally dedicated to Alan is his personal assistant Lin. Lin is long suffering, yet totally infactuated with him, I suppose you could say she is a 'bit' in love with him, but infactuation is a better way to describe it, throughout the series you see her go and do the most bizarre things to please him, yet she does it with a smile (she is a baptist so she may see it as performing her christian duty however).

Alan is now the late night host of slot on Radio Norwich, well when I say late night I actually mean the very early morning! He is frustrated that he has lost his television show, but is determined to get back up there, even though he admits he hates the general public and all they stand for.

The episodes have great story lines that you can watch independently or as a part of the series, so good is the writing and the comedy that they work either way.

Strong supporting characters enable this alongside Lin. i would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when casting this show, it must have been hilarious to see how they could get just the right people to work with Steeve Coogan to produce such comedy timing.

Michael who works at the hotel plays a key role and soon becomes Alan's friend (if you can call it that) which remains a central theme of series two. I really enjoyed seeing the realtionship between these two blossom and culminating in attempting to steal road traffic cones...only to be caught. Great stuff.

The Travel Tavern staff are also very well cast. Susan the boss of the desk is great, smiling through all of Alan's banality...until the last episode when something just had to give.

There are also performances throught the six episodes that stand out.

Dave Clifton - The DJ who does the breakfast show...and the relationship Alan has with him (beyond jealousy!)

Jill - The secretary from Peartree Productions (that goes bust after he does not get a second series) who is a fifty year old divorcee. Without giving too much away the Valentine dinner and ensuing madness is a highlight for me.

And finally Tony Hayres - Comptroller of BBC television programming...who is the architect of Alan's demise, a great character who surprisingly cannot be swayed by Alan's new ides for television programmes which include inner city sumo - fat people from estates wrestling or even beter...monkey tennis.

In only six episodes of the first series we are treated to hilarity, tinged with sadness and most brilliantly comedy that makes you cringe. There are far too many best bits to mention but if I had to choose one it would be Alan realising who is stalker is...and his reaction to the confronting the stalker with guests from Irish TV, I think it is probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Alan Partridge is Steve Coogan at his very best. It is hard sometimes not to consider him a real person as there are traitis of Alan in all of us.

I am off to put my blazer on and listen to my favourite Beatles album - 'The best of the Beatles'

Summary: A must for the Steeve Coogan fan