Back Of The Net ! (Im Alan Partridge !)

Member Name: utero

Product:	Im Alan Partridge !
Date:	26/11/02 (235 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very Funny, Memorable Moments

Disadvantages: Laughter Track

Monday nights at 10PM could have been an empty void when The Office finished a few weeks back. But the BBC pulled another rsbbit out of the hat by bringing back Alan Patridge after a five year break. Could Steve Coogan and Co still bring comedy gold to the table and make Monday nights the best night for comedy on TV.

Well JURASSIC PARK! They've managed as this series of I'm Alan Partridge is incredibly funny and so far we're only two episodes in. Alan is still living in Norwich which is where I come from and still he presents a slot on Radio Norwich when everyone is asleep. However he's now moved out of the Travelodge and is currently living in a caravan whilst the builders are in doing up his new house. His ever faithful PA Lynn tends to his every need and really earns her £8000 salary while Alan has a new foreign girlfriend Sonja who's not all the ticket. Of course Alan is a self obsessed tit whose reduced to hosting car crash videos which sell in petrol stations as well as hosting dull corporate shows.

The beauty of the show is that it's comedy that isn't really the kind that requires absurd situations in normal life. Alan is the kind of celebrity that you always read about, the kind who fleeted with TV stardom but now they've been relegated to minor work. The situations that create the plot of each episode come out of the simplest things that Alan really shouldn't be screwing up. Alan is arrogant and his life is screwed up, only he won't accept that fact. The first episode in this new series saw Alan going back to his old school to give a talk to the pupils. Instead of being inspiring he instead uses it as a platform to plug his video and also shame one of his former classmates whose now a teacher. Eventually Alan is forced to defend himself with an apple pie that's been in the microwave and is 'hotter than the sun'.

Steve Coogan has a character here that will go down in TV history as
being on par with the likes of Basil Fawlty, his comic timing is excellent. Seeing Alan try to host a corporate show while losing a lot of blood through impaling his foot on a fence is sheer genius. However the only thing that lets the side down is the addition of some overbearing audience laughter. Apparantly this isn't canned laughter and the actual reaction of the audiences that saw the live stuff being shot and the stuff on video. Well I don't really need to be told when to laugh and this show is too good to have to resort to these methods. Director Armando Iannucci responds to the criticism on the BBC website :-

'It's not canned laughter. We recorded it in front of a studio audience. If anything, I tried to tone it down. If Steve blows his nose there is a round of applause. I can't say, "Can you not laugh at this?" or "Can you laugh a little bit less at that?" The first series also had the laughter as well.'

If you've not seen the new series yet then you can see it on BBC 2 @ 10PM on a monday night, those with BBC Choice can catch the repeat on Thursday's at 9.30PM. The show is one of those that you can be sure will cause some discussion with your workmates and many will have saw it the previous night and every morning after the show you can be sure you or someone else will use one of Alan's pointless catchphrases like 'Back of the net!' or 'Cashback'. Check out the website to catch up on Alan's history or even view clips fro the show. Finally if you missed the first series then finally it's been re-released on DVD this week with some good extras.

"JACK-A-NACK-A-NORY!"

CHECK OUT ALAN @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/partridge/

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