Alan Partridge to return to TV next month, confirms Steve Coogan
This Time With Alan Partridge – which is loosely based on BBC's The One Show – will be broadcast this February.
The magazine-style show marks the fictional broadcaster's first return to live television since his 90s chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You.
His original show was scrapped after Partridge accidentally shot a guest on air.
Alan is a tactless TV and radio host who often says insulting remarks to his guests and is described by Steve as a “Little Englander, with right-wing values and poor taste.”
After years spent as a Norfolk Radio DJ, Partridge is delighted to be back on our screens and has had to update some of his views to reflect the times – but Coogan still promises some "atrocious arguments".
Speaking on the podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Coogan explained Partridge has some catching up to do in the Me Too and Brexit era.
"He’s sometimes ignorant and prejudiced but he tries to do the right thing. Early on we made him too predictably conservative a bit like shooting fish in a barrel – a caricature," Coogan said.
"Whereas now we do him as someone who realises that he’s got to get on message. He’s struggling to do the thing he’s supposed to.”
The character has been the focus of three TV series – Knowing Me, Knowing You, as well as I'm Alan Partridge and Mid Morning Matters.
He also spawned a 2013 film, Alan Partridge, Alpha Papa, which showed the star caught up in a radio station siege.
Alan will host the new magazine-style show alongside a male and female co-presenter – Susannah Fielding will play presenter Jennie Gersham and Tim Key will be Simon Denton.
The show is expected to run for six episodes and has been described as "a heady mix of consumer affairs, current affairs, viewer interaction, highbrow interview and lightweight froth".
He explained: "What we do is we have him trying to jump on the bandwagon and say, you know, he says ‘Hey! I’ve made mistakes, I’ve stood on the side of the sidewalk and slow hand-clapped while I watch a woman try to parallel park, you know, and I feel bad about that.
"And now if I saw a woman doing it now, I would shout instructions."
Adding: “Me Too – there’s a whole episode about that. That’s such a difficult topic for anyone to talk about for anyone to say anything about, but if you’re doing a character it weirdly gives you this licence to.
"You can get things wrong in a big way and it’s fine because it’s him doing it."
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