This Time With Alan Partridge

I’ve been doing something a bit naughty recently.  I’ve been snorting on packed trains in various failed attempts to stem my chuckling at different comedy shows, holding my poxy iPhone (battery life of 20 minutes max) a hair’s breadth from my nose while peering into its fractured screen and the hilarity within (unless the sun is streaming through the window directly onto it, in which case I can’t see anything).  I’ve been doing this with Fleabag, but there’s a second prime piece of iPlayer content that’s been causing me to snigger into my keep-cup coffee on the painful Southern service to Angmering (where I’ve been spending weekends learning how to Sunday roast in my parents’ kitchen (not a euphemism)): This Time With Alan Partridge.  There was a lady next to me on the return jaunt to Clapham Junction who I caused to jolt awake with my rampant tittering at Partridge’s antics, but luckily that wasn’t the most annoying thing I did to her as I did also accidentally drop my whole jacket on her head when trying to get it out of the overhead rack without exposing too much of my soft, soft tummy flesh while reaching overhead.  So, why has this show been causing me to do so many laughs?

Firstly, let’s look at the character himself, as Alan’s been with us since 1991.  We’ll need to take this post as me ticking off sideswiping at all of his previous output, from Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge to I’m Alan Partridge.  Played so ably by Steve Coogan, Partridge’s character frontier has blurred into most performances by his co-creator, but this is more down to my tiny mind’s lack of capacity rather than Coogan’s abilities.  He still kills it in The Other Guys (watch now for immediate LOLs) and has a great time in Hamlet 2 (definitely a real film and definitely enjoyable).  Back in the nineties, Partridge parodied the kind of vile, middle-class, jingoistic, chauvinist chap who lounged across many of TV’s chat sofas, exaggerating delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness to comedic success.  But, in a subversive twist, as with House Of Cards, real life has plumbed depths deeper than writers’ darkest imagining of our dystopian day-to-day lives.  2019 is home to broadcasting men who shouldn’t be listened to whilst raving wildly in bus shelters with their trousers round their ankles, let alone telling people what to think about driving cars while wearing bad jeans (Jeremy Clarkson) or still on telly trolling minority groups after publishing fake Iraqi prisoner abuse photos in a national newspaper (Piers Morgan).

This blog isn’t really a place where I want to attack people, but Piers Morgan isn’t people: a slathering antique whose chinly ambiguity is surpassed only by the variation in distances between his beady eyes.  I firmly believe that there is a fourth type of matter in the universe in addition to solid, liquid and gas, and this is Piers Morgan’s chin.  What even is it?  Before I get worked up, I should land my point: in comparison, Partridge suddenly seems harmless, with just enough charm that you sympathise with his terrible ambition but not too much pathos that you can’t laugh your head off when it all inevitably goes wrong for him.

Secondly, then, This Time apes a much-loved staple of teatime telly so well that we really do need to ask ourselves some tough questions as a nation: why do people tolerate mindless twaddle like The One Show?  It’s just so broad that it’s dripping in blandness.  It’s nice enough, but, for a bastard like me, being nice is not enough.  The moment I hear the opening note of the theme tune, I get shivers down my spine.  Surely there is more to life.  I remember a family holiday to Menorca when my niece was still crawling.  My dad’s first priority when entering any room is to turn the TV on (guess where my love of telly comes from) and villas on Mediterranean holiday are islands are no exception to this rule.  There we were, free of the banality of UK weekday life, ready to kick back and relax, escaping the drizzle, when suddenly: “Ooooooone, do-do-do-do-do-do, ooooooone, do-do-do-do-do-do…”  We had come all this way, only to be subjected to VTs about dog-walking in Wales and a live interview with someone who once did something underwhelming.  I immediately jumped in the pool.  The only good thing to come of it is that my toddler niece learned to blow raspberries in tune to the music, demonstrating a precocious skillset in recognising tosh and, also, the performing arts.

A former flatmate of mine used to work on the production team, going out around the UK making VTs.  I was able to ask him who the people were behind the cameras sneering and jeering at the hosts, like some sort of rent-an-audience designed to make The One Show feel like more of an impromptu spectacle than a settee-based conversation slowly dying in front of a floor-to-ceiling window.  Often, on his way out the door after a day’s editing of features on Britain’s favourite paving slab, he would be intercepted by a manager, innocently asking why he wasn’t hanging around to watch the live show.  He’d then lose his evening to providing the in-studio atmosphere, understandably reluctant to stay late as you would be in any job, though instead of finishing a deck or bashing out emails, he was forced to pretend to enjoy The One Show, possibly seeing a Hollywood A-lister asked for their views on the sexualisation of pre-pubescent girls or witnessing a politician being pushed to provide a response to the question: what is your favourite owl?

At this point, I should probably mention This Time With Alan Partridge in some shape or form.  The premise is that there exists a live BBC magazine-format show (This Time) which desperately needs a step-in male host.  Cue the With Alan Partridge bit.  As viewers, we therefore revel in the live links as they are filmed, the downtime in the studio as they play out and some of the actual VTs themselves.  Alan is true to form, desperate to go to any length to make his appointment permanent, drawing the limelight back to his terrible chat but then getting annoyed when his moments to shine drown in misjudgement, mediocrity or disaster.  Not only is the fake show stolen from Partridge, but the actual televisual format this post is about is also stolen.  Susannah Fielding plays Jennie Gresham, the existing host who must slide up the sofa felt to make way for Partridge’s man-spread legs and scotch egg breath.  She goes beyond being spot on in convincing us she is a real host, arriving at some kind of comedy peak where her shocked responses and professional cover ups merit more praise than I can conjure with my by-comparison shoddy prose.

As ever, a warm welcome is extended by me to Felicity Montagu (loved for her work in Nighty Night) as Partridge’s suffering-addicted assistant, Lynn.  She shuffles onto set when the cameras are off, seeing to Partridge’s refreshment needs (“Glass of water!”) or to slut-shame Jennie Gresham passively aggressively in relation to her choice of blouse.  More Lynn would really only improve things, but there’s a steady stream of guests and contributors who bring vitality to the comedy, from Ruth Duggan’s refusal to agree with anything Partridge says, to Simon Denton’s inability to make his giant interactive social media screen work properly (which is gratifying in itself given that no programme ever has been improved by the inclusion of a tweet expressing the opinion of Dave from High Wycombe).

Despite all the praise I’ve heaped here, though, the main office conversation around This Time With Alan Partridge concerns itself with mixed reviews, dwindling audiences and no recommissioning (an ironic situation for Alan).  To borrow some of his own self-assurance, I would conclude that anyone that doesn’t get the humour in this Partridge vehicle is completely stupid.  The awkward flow is all part of the concept, with every second orchestrated to enhance its own ridiculousness.  If you can’t bear the cringe with each unexpected silence, then, by all means, watch the actual One Show, or Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan, because you’ve truly found your level.  Meanwhile, I’ll go back to ruining public transport with my content consumption, which has now expanded beyond overloud staccato laughter while viewing the iPlayer into brandishing the dodgy cover photography of I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan while I indulge in reading Partridge’s autobiography on the Tube.