Alan Partridge

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Alan Partridge is a fictional character created by the English actor Steve Coogan . This figure represents an insensitive and mostly overwhelmed presenter . Alan Partridge's first radio show "On the Hour" in 1991 made him so popular that Steve Coogan has now featured him in three TV series, a movie, several specials and numerous appearances for other TV series , Comedy shows and festivals.

On the hour

The character of Alan Partridge first appeared on the BBC radio program in 1991 : Partridge was heard as an incompetent sports reporter in the comedy series On The Hour , a parody of news magazines hosted by comedian Chris Morris . The character quickly became popular.

Knowing Me, Knowing You ...

In 1992 the character got its own format: the fictional talk show Knowing Me, Knowing You ... with Alan Partridge , which was mainly about Partridge's inability to create such a show without embarrassing incidents. The talk guests were portrayed in each program by the same actors in changing costumes. Radio 4 also produced a program entitled Knowing Knowing Me, Knowing You , which pretended to document the work behind the scenes. From 1994 on Partridge was also seen on BBC television, first again as an overwhelmed sports reporter in the comedy series The Day Today (basically a TV version of On The Hour ), then also with his own talk show.

In reality, Alan Partridge's television show Knowing Me, Knowing You was a huge hit, but in the fictional world it was struggling with a rapidly falling audience. When the presenter of the Christmas program Knowing Me, Knowing Yule beat up a (fictional) program director of the BBC, it was clear that no second season of the talk show would be filmed. Partridge is fired.

I'm Alan Partridge

The second television series I'm Alan Partridge , filmed in the style of a documentary soap , is about the experiences of the presenter after the end of his television career. In the first season (1997) Alan is back in his hometown of Norwich , where he is hosting a show on Radio Norwich on the night rail. He is still trying to convince the BBC to produce a second season of his talk show with him, but unsuccessfully.

In the second season (2002) Partridge's situation improved slightly. He is now moderating the daytime channel of a local cable broadcaster and is the host of the game show Skirmish . His autobiography Bouncing Back falls far short of expectations, however, with the rest of the first edition being crushed at the end of the series. In spite of everything, Partridge has bought a house that he is having converted and lives in a trailer on the construction site. He has a Ukrainian girlfriend, Sonja. In the second season, flashbacks show that Partridge experienced a significant weight gain after being kicked out of the BBC.

The titles of the individual episodes are based on famous film titles, in each of which one word has been replaced by Alan .

Other programs and films

Steve Coogan also appeared on television as Alan Partridge in 1999 and 2001 as part of Red Nose Day , an annual benefit event for the Comic Relief charity , and in a half-hour "special" called Anglian Lives (2003), which pretended to shed light on the career of the showmaster.

Partridge also appears indirectly in Michael Winterbottom's ambiguous comedy A Cock and Bull Story (2006): Steve Coogan plays himself in it and is teased by colleagues with constant allusions to his most popular character. In fact, Coogan is said to have played the incompetent showmaster reluctantly in 2002.

Between 2010 and 2011, Coogan played his cult figure in the series Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge , broadcast on the Internet , which contains a total of twelve episodes and shows the presenter from a webcam perspective at work for the fictional radio station North Norfolk Digital .

In June 2012 the mockumentary Alan Partridge: Welcome to the Places of My Life was televised. In it, Partridge guides viewers through his home county of Norfolk and presents the local sights as well as his everyday life. Coogan received the British Academy Television Award for this show .

In 2013, Coogan brought his cult figure to the big screen. In the film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa , the local radio station North Norfolk Digital , for which Partridge works, is taken over by a multinational conglomerate. When a downsizing is feared, Partridge bursts into a board meeting and speaks out in favor of firing his colleague Pat Farrell ( Colm Meaney ) to save his own skin. When the latter initiates a hostage-taking in the radio station after his release, Partridge is used by the police as an intermediary.

Some running gags from the programs of the fictional showmaster are now common knowledge in English popular culture, especially Partridge's habit of providing guests with excerpts from ABBA songs and the formula “Knowing me, Alan Partridge, knowing you, [name of guest], a -ha ”. But Alan's loud shouting for Dan, a short-term best friend of Alan's, is also well known.

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