Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa film review

Steve Coogan’s dorkish creation is still cringeworthily funny as he turns action hero for his big-screen debut
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
15 October 2013

Is it ever really a good idea for a comedy character successfully established in television to be promoted to film? Actually, is it even a good idea for a character established on the radio to be promoted to TV?

Alan Partridge first appeared as a sports announcer in On the Hour in 1991 and launched his immortal chatshow Knowing Me, Knowing You with a six-part series on Radio 4 the following year. Already it was clear, to him at least, that he was destined for greater things, inviting Tony Hayers, the fictional commissioning director for television (played by David Schneider), on to his final show and hinting that “TV’s gain could be Radio 4’s loss”.

Although for Partridge purists, Alan has never been better than he was in that very first radio series, in which the sublime extent of his dorkishness was still a dawning realisation. When he moved to television we got the benefit of being able to see, not just imagine, the full tie and blazer, and the conceit, incomprehension and wild ambition twisting his face. Alan’s own desperate wish to be a success on television gave these programmes a particular comic edge: it mattered that they were parodies of the medium too.

Now here is Alan, more than 20 years down the line, in his first feature film and it isn’t quite a parody of a movie in the same way. For one thing, it has a proper, extraneous plot, as if the writers and producers weren’t confident that just Alan being Alan would hold our attention for the full 90 minutes.

When North Norfolk Digital, the local radio station where Alan still has his mid-morning show, is taken over by a rapacious media conglomerate, the ageing late-night DJ, Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney), is sacked.

He comes back to the studios with a shotgun and takes the new owners hostage, giving Norwich its very own Dog Day Afternoon-style armed siege. Pat, angry and confused, will only negotiate through his old friend Alan — little realising it was Alan himself who, fearing for his own job, rubbished him to the new bosses...

This siege scenario doesn’t quite work, being neither properly convincing nor completely a joke. It’s also not really caused by Alan’s own idiocy, unlike most of the messes he gets himself into.

The funniest scenes are those before this plot kicks in and after it is over, when Alan is just being his cringe-worthy self. Driving along the bypass in his branded Kia, wildly miming along to Roachford’s Feel For Me Baby, or asking his listeners which is the worst monger — “fish, iron, rumour or war?” — Alan’s a hoot. Steve Coogan is so good at making Alan simultaneously repellent and endearing: his rubbery mug alone justifies the big screen.

There are lots of wonderfully embarrassing moments: Alan, overcome with excitement about his appointment as hostage negotiator, suddenly kissing a stony-faced senior policewoman (Anna Maxwell Martin); Alan, sucking up to his vile new boss by talking about the “synergy” between them and thrusting together his forked fingers as an illustration, then saying “Oh no, that’s lesbians…”

So it doesn’t matter too much that the siege story becomes a bit tiresome and we never muster much interest in Pat. More of a problem is that the film slightly over-indulges Alan. He looks almost too sleek here (Coogan is a natty 47, playing 55), especially given that his PA Lynn (Felicity Montagu) and Geordie pal Michael (Simon Greenall) have aged so drastically that you wonder for a moment if they are being played by the same actors. And the film seems almost to make Alan into a developing character, capable of changing for the better, the very last thing we want.

But he’s incorrigible, thank heavens. Talking to Pat about the hopes they once nursed, Alan says: “I used to dream that one day I’d drive a brand new Range Rover towing a speedboat” and Pat replies sadly: “I used to dream about growing old with someone I love.” “Both valid,” Alan retorts.

The truth is that those of us who have loved Alan from the start now have so much invested in him that we can’t fail to be delighted to see him in another outing, even if it’s less than classic. If by some terrible misfortune you are not fully up to speed with the life and times of Norfolk’s finest, the Alan Partridge Complete Collection box set of six DVDs costs just a tenner, making it one of the great entertainment bargains of all time.

Watch the Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa trailer

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