Biggest Fans

After a weirdly long gestation – it was first announced in early 2024, and wrapped back in January – the greatest comedy character ever produced by the UK returns. In How Are You?, Partridge flies back to the UK after a 12-month trip to Saudi Arabia and realises that he isn't as happy as he thinks. What follows is a state-of-the-nation mental health documentary, presented by a man with one eye on his career. This cannot come quickly enough.

BBC, October

(Guardian)

The line between Steve Coogan and Alan Partridge is a blurry one. The love of cars. The clothes. They've both done their own live arena tours. They even share a face. But if you ever needed proof that they're not actually the same, it's the fact that when I meet him for breakfast at his London hotel, he's not at the buffet with an oversized plate, the staff aren't giggling at him, and we're not in a Travel Tavern.

We're here to talk about his new show, How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge). It's the latest instalment in the wider Partridge universe in which he presents digital radio, writes books, successfully podcasts, goes on tour, and made his BBC comeback on magazine programme This Time. (The character is now co-written with the Gibbons brothers, rather than Armando Iannucci and Peter Baynham.)

This time round we meet an altogether happier, wiser Partridge 3.0. He's no longer in the public eye, but "finds a steady stream of Norfolk-based corporate work just as fulfilling. On the face of it, my life is great," we learn. "I've got a large house," – he lives in the oasthouse from his podcast – "my partner Katrina [played brilliantly by Katherine Kelly] is one of the fittest women over 40 in Norfolk."

The show is a documentary, self-funded by Pear Tree Factual Productions, as he explores the topic of mental health: something else that Partridge is dealing with personally. He presents to camera. He conducts vox pops, hosts focus groups and interviews local experts. There are infographics. There's behind-the-scenes stuff with (yes!) Lynn. He attempts to reconcile with Sidekick Simon (Tim Key), who has had enough of Partridge's constant criticism, in the name of mental health. He visits a book club and takes to the air wearing a jet pack. Forget Partridge 3.0. This is Partridge 4.0 and a half.

Given the theme of the new show, what I really want to get to grips with is Coogan's inner Partridge. I've come armed with therapy-style questions. My thinking is: if I don't have Coogan in tears with repressed emotion by the end of the interview, I haven't done my job properly.

Things start well when Coogan's press woman (who disappointingly looks nothing like Lynn) introduces me with a mention of the Guardian's recent autumn TV preview, which (correctly) claims Partridge to be "the greatest comedy character ever produced by the UK."

"No pressure then," smiles Coogan.

"Alan's definitely more popular than me. That's a given," he says when I ask if he's jealous of Partridge's universal appeal. "He also wants to be liked by as many people as possible. I don't care about that. I want enough people to like me so that I'm allowed to exist.

"As you get older, I do feel like I don't have to be to everyone's taste. I'm OK with some people finding me irritating. When something has really gotten under my skin, rather than get broadsided for it, I'll have Alan be the champion of the thing I loathe, but in a funny way. You can't just have a big psychological wank. That's not entertainment. But it's a good starting point."

What advice would Coogan give Partridge on this chapter of his life?

"I would say: 'Don't try and be something you're not. You're never going to host Newsnight. Lean into what you've got.'"

What would Alan say to the seven-year-old Alan Partridge – and what would Coogan say to his younger self?

"[Alan would say:] It's going to be OK. They will all be proved wrong. You will win."

And Coogan? "It's not a million miles away. I did have an odd childhood," he continues. "I was quite sociable and popular, but lazy. I'm an autodidact. What drives me is the class thing. I have deep-seeded class issues, but I don't mind, because they're part of the engine. I used to have low expectations of myself. I'd get from one place to another place career-wise, then think: 'I wonder if I can get over here?' There's been times when I've turned down quick money. I've never done any panel shows. I watch Would I Lie to You? with my mum and think it's really funny, but I don't want to go on it. I don't have the personality ..."

Why doesn't he think he has a personality?

"I've got a personality. But I'm not a personality. I have to talk about this shit to get people to watch it," he says, of days when he's forced to meet the press. "Sometimes people, like you, ask me questions I haven't thought about before, and that gets folded back into my work, because I'll think: 'Oh yeah, that's why I do that ...'"

"Well, the direct parallel about what Alan and I would say to our younger selves. It makes me think of the sixth-form common room. Maybe this is [a bit] Alan Partridge, I don't know. Forty years ago, I remember thinking: 'I could be part of the next generation of comedy. Why don't I do whatever it is you're supposed to do and see if that happens? And if it doesn't, at least I know I tried.'"

If Alan was on the therapy couch, what would he be trying to get to the nub of?

"I think he would masquerade as emotionally open. But all the things he would confess to would be completely risk free. He'd be posturing. His vulnerability isn't real vulnerability. It's affected."

I crank it up. A therapist might say: "Steve, you are using Alan as an avatar. What's the story you're not telling yourself?"

"I'm reasonably happy as me," says Coogan. "I look around and think I have lots to be grateful for, so that keeps me grounded. I do accept that Alan is an unfiltered, unmitigated, unedited version of me. What's the story I'm not telling myself? It might be that I don't really want to fully understand the dysfunctions of my personality. All I know is it works when I shovel it into this avatar, so why mess with it?"

Everybody wears masks, I point out, it's just that Coogan wears one so publicly.

"I am self-aware in a way that Alan isn't," he says. "Sometimes when I'm speaking to well-educated southerners, my northern accent will fade away. When I'm talking to horny-handed sons of toil from up north, it suddenly comes back. It's either rank hypocrisy or it's empathy. I prefer the latter."

Does that apply to subject matter too?

"My daughter, Clare, says: 'You've got to stop talking about your midlife crisis. You are way past that.' Alan is lockstep with whatever will give him the least grief. He's quite Starmer-esque in that respect. I get angry and sanctimonious. I get incensed and descend into slagging people off. I don't trust myself in that regard. There's a catharsis in doing Alan. Some of his world view I fundamentally disagree with. But there will be something that I'll be glad to put the Alan wig on so I can say it out loud."

Does he ever see himself as a fictional character? For example, Lorraine Kelly successfully claimed for tax reasons that she appears as "a chatty personality"?

"Really? Wow!" This is news to Coogan. "I say things as Alan that are not true, like he had a fight in a car park with Noel Edmonds. The BBC lawyers say: 'That's slander.' How am I slandering someone by saying they had a fight in a car park with a fictional character?"

How long before the circles of the Venn diagram of Coogan/Partridge overlap completely?

"Maybe they'll eclipse before passing over each other." He tells a story of arriving in his trailer to find a blue, checked Aubin and Wills shirt to wear while playing Partridge – which was identical to the one he was already wearing. "I did take mine off and put the other one on, even though there was no one to witness me. There was a time when I was writing with Armando and Pete when I'd say something as myself, and they'd just write it down as Partridge and it would irritate me. Now the Gibbons do it all the time. As you get older, you realise it's all gravy."

What life lessons has Partridge taught Coogan?

"To be kinder to people."

I glance at the clock: we're coming up to 45 minutes, which seems like a good cut-off point for a pseudo therapy session. One last question. Will Coogan mind that, when he dies, his obituary will probably say: "best known for playing Alan Partridge?"

"It would be nice if they filled in some of the other details," he laughs. "I remember, as a child, watching Fawlty Towers. It would fill the house with laughter for half an hour, we'd switch off the TV, have a cup of tea and dissect it, to make sure it was imprinted on your memory. It was an event. I remember thinking: how amazing it would be to create something like that. I did that with Alan Partridge. If that's what I'm remembered for, that's fine with me."

How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) is on BBC One and iPlayer in October.

(https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/12/alan-partridge-is-more-popular-than-me-steve-coogan-interview#img-2)

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/318b7f3ffbbf76e63860d9007c36bfdaa653d02e/288_14_3670_2938/master/3670.jpg?width=880&dpr=2&s=none&crop=none)

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ebd7d4b434bce4637e9c7692c467b299466709d3/511_41_3764_3012/master/3764.jpg?width=620&dpr=2&s=none&crop=none)

Via Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/12/alan-partridge-is-more-popular-than-me-steve-coogan-interview)

Could Steve Coogan be closer to Alan Partridge than he would like to admit? One story from the filming of his new BBC series suggests that he might...
'There was a day when Steve came in wearing a checked shirt,' says co-writer and co-director Rob Gibbon. 'He went through to the room where his costume for the day was hanging up – and it was the exact same shirt 'That's true,' Coogan concedes. 'And it wasn't just a similar shirt. It was literally the same – same manufacturer, in the same size. And I looked at it hanging up, and I thought, "Oh, so this has happened." 'I remember I took off my shirt and put that shirt on and at the end of the day took that off and put my own one on again. I thought I can't not do that or I'm gonna lose the plot. So I did do that. It was a pointless thing to do...'

An observer watching that bizarre ritual might have wondered about Coogan's state of mind – which is apt as the new show, How Are You? It's Me, Alan (Partridge) revolves around men's mental health. However the star insists 'our purpose isn't to laugh at mental health but to look at someone trying to exploit mental health'. And he even suggests that mocking Partridge's bandwagon-jumping might be a 'Trojan horse' in which he can 'inadvertently demythologise talking about it... so it's not cynical, even though it's funny.'

Rob agrees about the motivation for tackling the subject. 'Alan, in some ways, he's an idiot, but as a broadcaster, he's actually got quite good instincts.,' he explained at a preview screening attended by Chortle. 'I think he's a guy who's had two big bites of the cherry with the BBC, and blown both – once by, unfortunately, shooting a guy live on TV.

'He's desperate to have one more shot at it. I think he probably looked around and thought, what's hot at the moment? And they thought, well, mental health is hot, so if I can convince people to let me on the telly and talk about my vulnerabilities, then that could be a nice little earner. So, you know, get me on the mental health gravy train.'

Rob has written Partridge with Coogan and his brother Neil since his comeback in North Norfolk Digital's Mid Morning Matters. Both siblings agree the character had to evolve if he was to have longevity.

Neil said: 'When Alan first started as a character, we saw him as a live broadcaster. And in those days, there was an expectation of a certain professionalism and conduct that, obviously Alan fell short of. But these days, you don't really have that. People like Richard Madeley are on air, and they are on air because they're going to say something that's beyond the pale, or a bit stupid, a bit daft, because that's meme-able content. So these days, we have to build into the premise ways that Alan can have jeopardy - give him a high wire - and mental health is obviously a subject that he knows very little about. And it feels like we [as writers] are a bit scared of it as well. So that felt like it's got a good engine to it.'

Coogan says he once thought being so closely associated with Partridge was 'a bit of an albatross' around his neck – but shook that off once he found success in projects away from the character. Today he says: 'Now I can go back and do Alan because I want to, not because I have to. I don't want to live with Alan, but I like visiting him.'

Why does he stick with him? 'I like doing it. That's a simple answer. And as long as you keep the standard up... 'Now he's been invented, we might as well run with it from time to time. He's quite a good conduit to talk about popular culture and things that are difficult or say, things that are perhaps taboo or would be difficult to talk about as me.'
He admits he likes putting politically incorrect thoughts into Partridge's mouth. 'We as people, know that we ought to have values X, but sometimes think things that are at odds with that, or our intuition might be at odds with the way we know we're supposed to be, and that conflict is very real, very human.
'That's writ large with Alan, seeing him struggling with that stuff. But it's good to sometimes say the unsayable thing. Sometimes Alan says stuff that I agree with – secretly – and sometimes he says stuff that I find repellent.'

He says that in the writers' room 'if we feel anxiety or there's a natural danger, we have to roll the dice. We have to think, "if we get that wrong, it'll be terrible". If that's what you feel, then it's a good indicator. 'We're quite careful. Sometimes we'll laugh at something when we're writing... that we feel is really, genuinely irresponsible. We might say, "You know what? That actually feels a bit lazy, and we don't want to do that, lots of other people do that kind of stuff." We don't want to be part of the problem. So we will self-censor sometimes. If it feels like we're playing a bit too much on Alan's small-minded prejudice – if we feel we did a cheap joke, basically – well, generally, we'll laugh at it. We'll enjoy it. But it won't go anywhere.'

Neil agrees: 'I think sometimes things are unsayable, because you shouldn't say them – so we tend to steer clear [of that].'

At the screening, Rob also recalled how he and his brother first started working with Coogan. 'We'd written a script – maybe for Mid Morning Matters. And it was when Armando Iannucci was still involved,' he recalls. 'He arrived first and said, "I read the script – really good." 'We were delighted, because this is Armando Iannucci. And then Steve barrelled in and said, "Yeah, all right, sort of 30 per cent maybe 20 per cent" So that was our introduction. I remember the first day of recording... I think we thought that when you've written a script, then it gets filmed. We didn't realise that's not how it works with Partridge.

So after the first take, Armando was there, he went in and gave Steve some some feedback, and he said to me and Neil, "You can go in as well." 'And that's from that point onwards, that's when we realised that what you've written, maybe half of that will end up being used, and then it's being constantly rewritten on the day the night before, it's being constantly rewritten in the edit. We thought the writing process was one bit, and then you film it, and then you edit it. Actually the writing process for Partridge is all three parts of that process. So I actually wonder how you could be a director and not be a writer, because the writing is the directing and the editing.'

Coogan took issue with the '20 to 30 per cent line', suggesting it was 'more like 60 or 70 per cent but maybe I'm rewriting history in my head'. 'But I do remember thinking, Oh, great. I don't have to try and bother Armando or Peter Baynham ever again. 'All the writing of Armando, Patrick Marber and people was very good, funny and had a sort of spikiness to it. But Rob and Neil are really totally comfortable with poignancy or pathos.

Alan evolved under their stewardship to be more three-dimensional, so sometimes you can actually feel sorry for Alan, have compassion for him and that's just much more humane execution of the character that's giving it longevity. It's multi-dimensional, where it wasn't before.' Neil concurred: 'Certainly in Knowing Me, Knowing You he was surrounded by quite sensible people who were smart and fairly reasonable, and Alan would always be the person saying something stupid or out of order. And I think we've surrounded him with people who are generally a bit more dickish. So Alan, often, in a clumsy kind of way, does say things that as an audience, you agree with and you think, "yeah, he's sort of got a point there," and it just gives you another angle of attack. 'Otherwise, you run out of ways that you can just say the wrong thing, or, you know, lose his temper with someone.'

Rob adds that Partridge is 'a reflection of a lot of white, middle-class men of a certain age, where the world's changed too fast for them, and they're actually really scared and don't really know what to do about it, so he's doing his best but getting it wrong. Coogan agrees, saying: 'He feels the walls closing in, so he's rapidly trying to think of an escape plan. And it's almost like, how [prisoners of war] escaped from Colditz by putting on a Nazi uniform. What Alan is doing is saying, "I'll put on a millennial uniform and disappear into the crowd unnoticed.'

It's a position that strikes a chord across generations, the comic says. 'I've noticed anecdotally that Alan's first 15-20 years was people thinking, "There, but for the grace of God, go I" – all the banana skins we've managed to avoid in our lives, we see this man slipping on them all. And then, more recently, children who are 20 or 21 or 22... that generation sees their parents in Partridge. They see that sort of desperation of their parents to try to be relevant, or not be square, and trying to be on-message somehow. And that struggle to try to be hip with the kids, a lot of younger people see that reflected in their parents, and that's why they get it.'

The new series sees Coogan doing well on a small scale, making a living from lucrative corporate work and with a 'girlfriend who's younger than him, who's beautiful, who's clearly, quite a figure in the community,' Neil explains. 'But is just an awful, awful woman.' That his partner Katrina (played by Katherine Kelly) treats him badly is some payback for the way Alan bullies his assistant Lynn, Coogan suggests, while Rob reveals an unusual inspiration for the character. 'The original model was Liz Truss,' he explains. 'But we moved more into "Sexy Witch" territory instead.

And – similar taste in shirts aside – does Coogan actually like his alter-ego? 'I don't like him really,' he says. 'If he was a real person, I'd think he was a dick. I wouldn't want to hang out with him. 'But I do think he's not mean. I think he's not mean-spirited. I think he's misguided. And I think there are far worse people in Alan's world and in the real world than Alan. Alan's just sort of that perennial aspirant fool that there are lots of examples of this in comedy through the years. It's not a new invention, really. It's just a different version. I think it's like Malvolio in the Twelfth Night, in that he's pompous and thinks he knows more than he does, but everyone knows he's an idiot.
'When I was writing with Armando and Pete and Patrick, I would get defensive of him when they were being too cruel. I was like, "No, don't do that to him... That person's worse than him. Let's humiliate that person because they deserve it more than him".

Neil agrees: 'I think a lot of comedy characters are based on just a very simple comic tic. They're stupid, or they're short tempered.
'Alan's tic comes from something much deeper. So sometimes it can be stupid, obviously, but sometimes he's quite smart and well read, quite metrosexual. Sometimes he tries to be really macho, and I think it comes from him basically not really knowing himself. And he's often like trying out different versions of himself and falling short every time. '
'On any given subject, be it, you know, Brexit, animal testing,... you can quite easily create justification for Alan taking one side of the argument or the other. So it feels like the well is very deep.'

• How Are You? It's Me, Alan (Partridge) is set to air from 9.30pm on Friday October 3.
– by Steve Bennett

from What's On TV

For his latest on-screen venture, Steve Coogan decided that one of the most sensitive topics dominating the conversation right now would be a fitting outlet for TV's most heavy-handed and tactless characters. Yes, folks, Alan Partridge is back. And this time, he's tackling mental health.

Ironically billed as "Britain's first ever documentary about mental health", How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) is a new BBC series in which the unlikely national treasure, fresh from a year working in Saudi Arabia, returns to his home territory and takes it upon himself to try and solve the UK's mental health crisis.

The idea for the show first came about when Steve and his co-writers Neil and Rob Gibbons asked themselves: "If someone was fading from the spotlight, as a presenter, what would they do to make themselves relevant again?'. One solution they eventually came up with was "well what's being talked about at the moment?'.

"We live in sort of confessional times, don't we?" Steve tells HuffPost UK. "In terms of media and personalities. You can sort of spin your trauma into work."

A quick scroll through BBC iPlayer will potentially support this theory, offering a veritable deluge of celebrity-fronted documentaries about all manner of serious subjects and societal issues, often relating to dark moments from the subject's personal history.

With that in mind, Steve and the Gibbons brothers came to the conclusion that this trend is one that Alan Partridge himself would want to get in on, reasoning that if "Alan will talk about this, and say that maybe he's got issues, and make himself vulnerable" it might "make himself interesting" to a viewer.

Steve is quick to insist, though, that the character's motivations are "not completely cynical".

Indeed, in episode one, we discover the comedy character has recently been experiencing mental health wobbles of his own, albeit ones that manifest in the most Partridge way possible (which we won't spoil for you at this early stage).

"It's not that Alan thinks, 'oh I'm going to make up that I've got an illness'," he claims. "It's not. Because I think he genuinely believes there's something going on. He sort of believes it himself, so he's not disingenuous.

"He's not faking it, but he might be wanting something to be true and therefore believing it."

In fact, while How Are You? is first and foremost a comedy, Steve claims viewers might even "learn a few things" along the way, too.

Fittingly for a parody of the recent influx of celeb-fronted series, Steve concedes that this one "doesn't really get granular", instead breezing over the subject in the way "that Alan would".

By the end of the series, though, the four-time Bafta winner says that things do take a "poignant" turn, as his most famous comedy creation "definitely learns something, in a strange sort of abstract way, about his own baggage", even if it is "almost accidental".

"There's something about it that's cathartic. So, he might be being cynical in the way he tries to do it, but in the end, he ends up not being cynical. And the programme itself isn't cynical."

While How Are You? is "not really going to solve anyone's psychosis or personal profound psychological issues", Steve is quick to clarify, he does believe it "ultimately contributes" to the ethos that it's now "clearly fine to talk about mental health issues and to say you've got them" in today's culture, more so than ever before.

This latest mockumentary marks Alan Partridge's return to our screens after four years since the final of the satirical magazine show This Time, which parodied the likes of The One Show and Good Morning Britain, through the inimitable Partridge lens.

For Steve and his collaborators, the Gibbons brothers, they like to wait until they have the germ of an idea "that can get us juiced up creatively" before returning to write more Alan Partridge, "and not do it because of some sort of contractual obligation", insisting that's an "unhealthy" way of creating.

"I always [like to] go away and do some other stuff, and then I feel like I want to come back," he shares. "You want to miss it for a bit, and then go home again. And Alan to me feels like going home.

"Doing the other stuff feels like my forays and my journeys and adventures. And then I sort of come home to Alan."

In the years since This Time came to an end, Steve's projects have been distinctly un-Partridge, including the ITV crime drama Stephen (inspired by the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence in the early 1990s), the political drama Brian And Maggie, the Me Too-inspired Chivalry and the controversial The Reckoning, in which he played the disgraced TV personality Jimmy Savile.

Steve remembers making The Reckoning as "relentlessly not funny", and while there was "gallows humour on set, to relieve the tension", it was, for the most part, a "really bleak" shoot.

"I'm not really a Method actor as such, so I wouldn't have my lunch as Jimmy Savile," he explains. "As soon as they say 'cut', I'm out, you know?"

Initially found it easy enough to leave the character at the door, reasoning "this is fine, it's just a job".

"People would say, 'how do you do it? You're really brave', [but] it's a job," he insists. "My job was to bring that character to life – and not [make him] a pantomime villain, make him real. To deal with this issue, you have to humanise the perpetrator, to an extent. And if you do it as a cartoon villain then you're sort of doing a disservice to the survivors. I'd go home and try and shake it off, although my daughter once said, 'Dad, do you know you're still speaking like Jimmy Savile?'."

And by the end of the shoot, playing Savile day in, day out was beginning to take its toll.

"I had been doing it for several months, I had a bald head because I had to put wigs on, and towards the end, it started to get to me," he recalls.

"There was one day I was in the trailer, and I sort of wanted to burst into tears, because I felt so... sort of grubby. The day I walked away and took that wig off for the last time, I felt like I'd been freed.

"And then, you go, 'I want to just go and laugh again'."

This unique power of laughter, Steve says, is one he's only begun to really understand as the years have gone on.

"When I started out I used to think, 'comedy, so what? Ha ha ha, whatever'," he admits. "As I get older, I'm more appreciative of how enjoyable it is to laugh. That sounds really simple, but it is a nice thing to do, and it's a very nice thing to be able to let other people do.

"I think, probably, what changed was getting letters from people who'd been through some sort of trauma, or some terrible life experience, who said that my stuff had got them through that. And that's when you suddenly go, 'comedy isn't trivial, it's just funny'.

"There's often this thing, in this country in particular, where we go, 'oh comedy is a lightweight artform', compared with drama or all the classics and all the rest of it. But it's very, very powerful and if used properly, can be a really constructive thing."

"But," he acknowledges. "It can also be a really destructive thing. You can destroy people in a really corrosive way, and it can encourage bullying and the worst kind of prejudice can be encouraged by comedy."

This is something Steve and his co-creators were keen to avoid, especially when handling a subject as thorny as mental health, through a character as frequently insensitive as Alan Partridge.

"We are ethical when we write this stuff," he maintains. "We don't punch down, we only punch up to people who have power and autonomy. We don't mock those who are disenfranchised or disempowered – because we don't want to!

"In fact, sometimes, we'll be laughing in the room, me and the Gibbons, and you go, 'you know what, this is making us laugh here, but actually it encourages a kind of lazy stereotype that we don't like'. Sometimes we'll call someone else on it, among the three of us, 'do you think that joke's a bit...?'. And then we'll pause and we'll say, 'yeah, let's leave it'. And we will leave it, even though we've been laughing at it, because we don't want to be part of the problem. And that's intuitive. It's not us trying to be, you know, 'popular' or whatever."

He continues: "I heard someone say, 'oh, self-censorship's a terrible thing'. No it's not, actually! Sometimes, you hear this myth propagated, where it's like, 'oh, people who don't laugh at our stuff, they haven't got a sense of humour'. I mean, you used to hear that from the Top Gear lot years ago, 'they don't get us'.

"And I used to think, 'no... I'm funny, I know how to be funny, and you don't have to be a dick to be funny'. It's not being a killjoy to exercise some sort of responsibility. It sounds like it is, but it's not. It's all about how you're coming at it, and you can be very, very funny, and as long as the process that you're doing it is about calling the right people to account, then that's absolutely fine."

Something else Steve is often "annoyed" at is the regrettably oft-repeated adage of "you can't say anything anymore".

"That's bullshit. Bullshit," he says. "To people who say that, I don't agree with them, I think they're totally wrong. They're just not inventive enough to know how to be funny."

In fact, while attitudes and standards may have shifted considerably since Alan Partridge first came on the scene three decades ago, Steve says this is something he finds beneficial as a comedy writer.

"There's no doubt about it, there are new protocols that you're supposed to observe," he explains. "In actual fact, that, to me, is quite a fruitful thing. You can sort of have your cake and eat it, because you can sort of play with the notion of what you are, or what you are not, supposed to say – and make that funny.

"Certainly, with Alan Partridge, it's sort of a strange vehicle where you can do the wrong thing and it still be OK, and it still be funny, because it's all filtered through the character. I'm not going around saying the things that Alan says, and I don't agree with most of the things that Alan says. But sometimes I do! I won't tell you which ones, but sometimes I go, 'tee-hee-hee'."

He says: "There's an inherent conflict in most people, which is perfectly healthy and perfectly normal, which is that we might know that we ought to feel something, but then our instinct or thoughts can be in conflict with that. And those thoughts might not be very constructive, but that doesn't mean they're not real.

"It's things like, petty prejudices that we know that we ought not to have, [but] we still maybe intuitively have to navigate around. Sometimes, it's very difficult to sort of say, 'I sometimes think this', because people will then jump down your throat and go, 'you're a bigot'. But actually, it's 'are you trying to do the right thing?'. And the thing about Alan is, he is trying to do the right thing. He sometimes fails, but he's not malevolent or malicious, he's just sort of a fool, really.

"And sometimes, like the Shakespearean fools, you can point things out that are true. You can say the Emperor's not wearing any clothes."

With Alan Partridge, Steve notes, "you know what the intention behind it is, and even if he is being ignorant or insensitive, we're laughing at him, not at the joke, necessarily".

As for his new show's potentially thorny subject matter, Steve says this was part of what attracted him and the Alan Partridge team to the idea.

"If you feel a bit of anxiety about whatever creative choice you're making, that's probably a good sign."

"Something I've realised over the last 30 years is, when people are anxious about something, it makes them more fertile for them to want to laugh, because they need a release from that anxiety," he observes. "You make them a bit anxious about something, and it's a slightly uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach. And then, when you make them laugh, the laughter is louder somehow, because it is this pressure valve release.

"Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking, 'don't talk about that, it's too problematic', but in actual fact, the reverse is true. Talk about things that are problematic, and then, it actually brings people together.

"We live in these strange times where people are anxious about what they say and think, and feel that they're going to be sort of monstered by people for having a point of view that isn't a collected sort of package of off-the-shelf beliefs."

For Steve, in increasingly divided times, comedy can be a useful tool to unify people who might otherwise be completely politically or ideologically opposed.

"What I like about when I'm doing a live show is, if I look at my audience, and they're all laughing at the same moment, I think, 'all those people in that audience must all have different views about things, and yet, for a few seconds, they are all in agreement that they think that thing was funny'. And that's it's only recently I realised how incredible powerful that is

"It's like, 'oh you can unify people, even if it's only for a few seconds'. And then you think, 'wouldn't it be great if you could do that all the time?'. It connects people if they're laughing as a group. You go, 'maybe my opponent isn't so scary, I mean, we both agree that that was funny'."

"Having said that," he notes. "It sounds like we're sort of crusaders with our comedy. But we just do stuff that makes us laugh."

How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) premieres on Friday 3 October on BBC One, with all six episodes then being made available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Via Huffington Post (https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/steve-coogan-interview-alan-partrige-mental-health-jimmy-savile_uk_68d677fce4b085d511c5fb35?utm_campaign=bluesky_feed)

More than three decades in broadcasting, Alan Partridge has done it all. He started out as a sports presenter, became a BBC chat show host, was banished to North Norfolk Digital's graveyard radio slot, fronted documentaries and triumphantly returned to the Corporation before flaming out in a blaze of acrimony.

Now he's back. Following a brief but lucrative (if ultimately unfulfilling) stint in Saudi Arabia, Partridge is returning to our screens with yet another tilt at making it big. This being Partridge means it is, of course, farcical. His latest wheeze is to self-fund, write and present "Britain's first-ever documentary about mental health" after he had a distressing experience of his own: twice fainting face-down in a woman's lap while presenting an agricultural show.

The choice of subject matter was a good way to illustrate how desperate Partridge is to force his way back into the mainstream, according to Neil Gibbons who, along with his twin brother Rob, has been writing the character with Steve Coogan for the past 15 years.

"What we wanted was Alan to be cynically trying to produce content that he felt was both worthy and would insulate him against accusations of careerism," Neil says. "And if someone is doing a documentary on a subject like that, it feels like you can't really question their motives without coming across as mean-spirited yourself." Rob, the elder by one minute, warms to this theme. "For him, the beauty of mental health is [that] it's invisible, so nobody can prove that he's lying when he says he's had his own problems."
Exploring taboo subjects

That mental health is a topic Partridge appears to know very little about, and is probably quite afraid of, is no barrier to him attempting to use it as a way to prove that he is, once again, a serious broadcaster. Classically Partridgian lines, such as that "fox hunters are a minority" or that "Jesus believed chicken soup could cure depression", hammer that point home.

"Even in this series, it's ostensibly about mental health but actually, if you watch all six episodes and note down how much stuff is about mental health, it's not really a great deal, is it?" asks Rob. "It's just the vanity project of a fading presenter who wants to sort of try out all the tools of being a documentary maker, hoping it gets him some more work."

A lot of the humour in How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) comes from the character having to navigate a thorny topic while being constantly terrified of being cancelled for saying something that isn't politically correct. "It means that he is constantly losing his bearings in conversations," says Neil. "And it means that he can't ever speak confidently and openly because he's constantly trying to think, 'How is this going to play?' It's a very useful springboard for comedy."

The character's long lifespan – he first appeared on screen in 1991 – and the fact that he is so beloved by so many means that it can be used as a way to explore taboo subjects that other comedic writers would not dare. One memorable scene from the new series features Partridge happening upon an old cassette show reel in which he shows off his "range" of accents, including Brummie, Caribbean and then, to the strain of instantly-recognisable stereotypical music known as the "Oriental riff", Chinese. It is hilarious, but hard to imagine in 2025 a new comedic creation doing accents in a funny way.

'We're always trying to make sure that it's the character generating the comedy, and that you're laughing at Alan," says Neil. "When people are watching it, they know that he's a very badly flawed character, and they know that he's constantly making missteps like that, that they know that he is the butt of the joke. If that wasn't so well established, then we would probably have to tread a bit more carefully so that things like that weren't misconstrued as a first base, end-of-the-pier kind of unreconstructed comedy."

He adds: "It allows you to push the boat into areas that you wouldn't do if it was a brand new character, where people are going 'Hang on a second, what's this?'"


The brothers are clearly close – they never interrupt one another, instead instinctively knowing when the other has finished talking – but they are geographically separated when we speak on a video call. Rob lives in South London, while Neil is in Stockport. Neil says that it is useful to get "a bit of distance" while working together, though they always have an online chat open.

The 48-year-olds grew up in Sandbach, Cheshire, and were teenage fans of Partridge during his original incarnation. After graduating from university – Neil did law at Manchester while Rob read political science at Warwick – they moved to London together. They had corporate jobs but entered, and won, a BBC competition for new comedy writers after penning a sketch about a Labour supporter who sought to win back his ex-wife by becoming a councillor. They started writing for Radio 4 programmes and first came into Coogan's orbit when they submitted a script called Pigsy Doodle to Baby Cow, his production company.

The brothers got invited by Coogan to work on a potential revival of Paul and Pauline Calf (the spoof video diary also known as Three Fights, Two Weddings, and a Funeral) and to write for his 2008 live tour. The Partridge character had been in deep-freeze since the end of I'm Alan Partridge in 2002, not least because Coogan thought the character had become an "albatross around [his] neck". But they pitched some ideas that the star loved. That became 2010's Mid Morning Matters, and Partridge has been a regular fixture on screen, in books and podcasts for much of the time since – all co-written by the Gibbons twins.

"What struck us really, really quickly about Steve, that was perhaps unexpected, is that even though the character is his character, and to a large extent, is him, he's not proprietorial about it at all and he's not precious," says Rob. "If something seems funny, he'll laugh generously. It only took a few minutes and it felt like we were up and running... Once you win his trust, he treats you very much on the level. Without naming any names, there are plenty of people in the industry who are also of his level who wouldn't and don't act like that."

Neil does add that, even after more than a decade, it is still surreal "when you're in a room with Steve Coogan and he starts doing the Partridge voice".

The new series is some of the funniest Partridge in the canon, partly because of Coogan's always exquisite performances, and partly because the central character is so much more rounded than the one that was a James Bond fanatic and kept saying "A-ha!" or "Back of the net!"

Coogan said at a recent screening of the new series that a large part for Partridge's durability was the new elements that the Gibbons brothers have brought to the character.
Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge in This Time with Alan Partridge "All the writing with Armando [Iannucci], Patrick Marber and Peter Baynham was very good and funny and had spikiness to it, but Rob and Neil are totally comfortable with poignancy or pathos and aren't as cruel to Alan," he said. "Alan evolved under their stewardship to be more three-dimensional, so that sometimes you can actually feel sorry for Alan and have compassion for him."

Rob says: "You end up laughing at a character more when you feel for them. And also, I think, there's no getting away from the fact that if you write down the details of his life, how could you not feel sorry for him? He's a pathetic, pathetic figure. On the surface, he may seem hard to like and quite petty, but actually, he's just a frightened little boy. That's all he is, and he's never, ever got past that."

The success of the Gibbons twins at revitalising Partridge is all the more remarkable because they are more than two decades younger than the character, who is long said to have been born in 1955. Neil insists that there is no magic behind their being able to so accurately render the views and touchstones of that generation. "Fundamentally, we're just quite boring, fogeyish people, and having the inherent spite and inferiority complex that Alan does probably helps," he says.

Thoughts on Farage

Partridge, with his driving gloves and distrust of the Left, has always seemed to embody a very English form of Toryism. But with the Conservative party seemingly in terminal decline, would he find himself doing what so many other Tories are doing and flocking to Reform UK? "Possibly. When we talked about what would Alan's views on Brexit be before, it is quite easy to imagine that he would be drawn in by the everyman-ness of Nigel Farage, but when he gets to know him a bit more think, 'Actually this guy's a bit of a d---'," says Neil. "Alan jumps to conclusions, and then suddenly it sort of sours. It can be hard to pin down what his views are, because he's ruled so much by the vagaries and whims of his character and his mood at any given moment that that trumps things like ideal and principle."

Reform may be superficially attractive to Partridge, but he is unlikely to go out canvassing for the party. "He's the sort of person that would probably be drawn to the branding and the pints and the nice silk tie of it, but then if he got to a meeting and it was more working class types, I think he'd be like 'I'm not sure about this,'" Neil adds.
"That's why he was very much a Cameron/Osborne type, and he liked the way that they were perceived nationally. Whereas if he went to Tory events and found himself surrounded by other public school people, he wouldn't like that either. He's a badge-wearing follower of politics, rather than the sort to turn up at the meetings."

How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) is on BBC One at 9:30pm on October 3

Coming home to Norwich after a year working in Saudi Arabia, Alan Partridge makes a return to television at 9.30pm - to produce, present and direct 'Britain's first ever documentary about mental health'. How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) will air on BBC One and iPlayer from 9.30pm. Steve Coogan and his co-writers the Gibbon Brothers previously spoke about the character's return at a screening – as we covered here – but here's a new Q&A issued by the BBC:

What can viewers expect from How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) and where does it find Alan?

Alan has been in Saudi Arabia nursing his wounds after he was fired by the BBC, but he has now done a new self-funded series (with some sponsorship from Flench and Sun Tanning Centres). It's a documentary series on mental health, which is why it's called How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) where Alan examines the state of the mental health of the nation and also our individual states of mental health.

You mention Saudi Arabia. Why there?

He found that there's an expat audience in Saudi that fit his demographic, Alan appeals to them and they appeal to Alan. So, he had a little professional vacation for the last two years in Saudi Arabia, where he hosted things from Today At The Riyadh Stock Exchange, right through to Happy Birthday Crown Prince.

You've been playing Alan for over 30 years, what keeps him creatively interesting to you?

Some people ask: 'why don't you do lots of different characters?' And Icould do that, but the character is so well known now that you can take him on these strange little journeys. You don't need to introduce the character any more as everyone knows him, so you can go off on these adventures and put him in strange places and different situations and different contexts. He's just a conduit for what's going on in the world, so when something happens or there's a change of the zeitgeist, or people have different views on things or things shift in the national psyche, Alan can reflect all that.

When you revisit him do you feel like you're slipping back into something familiar?

Yes. I have a strange relationship with Alan Partridge, because many years ago I did lots of different characters and then I sort of settled on Alan as he seemed to be the most fruitful. Then I felt like I was saddled with him, so I went off to do some other things and I got recognition for things, like Philomena that got lots of Oscar nominations, and then I got Bafta nominations for things that were non-Alan.

So that  felt like I'd exorcised the ghost and then I thought I'd come back to Alan, I feel like he's my friend. It's like living with a friend who gets on my nerves, then once you move away you become friends again and you meet up with them and you're on an equal footing - that's my relationship with Alan.

Do you think Alan is growing or do you think it's his inability to grow that fuels the comedy?

I think Alan wants to grow, wants to be modern, wants to be relevant, but can't quite manage it and that's why people laugh at him. I think younger people still like watching Alan because they see their parents trying to be trendy, God forbid, and they see their parents' clumsy attempts to be on message, if you like.

Are you surprised by Alan's popularity with younger audiences?

I'm very pleased with Alan's relevance to younger people because it means I can milk it for a few more years! It's definitely a cross- generational thing, I often meet parents with grown up children where they all like Alan Partridge. I did used to wonder how it would be relatable, but of course, in the old days, it wasn't so much - it was just that the parents were younger, and they would think, 'Oh, that could be me!' I sometimes say things like: 'Thank God I'm not as bad as he is', so there is some vicarious pleasure in it.

Do you think this show says something about the way British society engages with mental health?

Well, yes. The thing about Alan is that you can use him to talk about difficult subject matters. Because it's comedy, it creates this safe space - it's through the lens of a character, so it is a way of talking about things. The way we write it, Alan might say things that are inappropriate or problematic - Alan's whole life is definitely problematic - but I think it's a way of talking about stuff, which takes the curse off it, it makes it enjoyable and not scary.

Strangely [although] I think it's a cynical move [for Alan] to talk about mental health, it actually does help people talk about it. Although the series is funny and irreverent, it does actually throw up a lot of genuine issues, so it's not just frivolous.

You touched on the writing of the series, you've worked with writers and directors Neil and Rob Gibbons for years, what is that collaboration like?

I really enjoy writing with them. It's always enjoyable, sometimes they go off and write by themselves, reassemble stuff together, and then we talk it through and 'workshop' it. I know that when I'm going to meet them that I'll be laughing that day. We have lunch, go back and discover stuff and laugh and it's enjoyable because you know other people are going to be laughing at the thing that you've just created. It's really, really pleasurable and they're very funny.

They have slightly different roles, Rob is slightly harder to make laugh than Neil, so I know if Rob's laughing, then it's definitely funny - so he's a good barometer in that respect. They are almost an overlapping Venn diagram, but there's a slight difference in their personalities, they both bring something slightly different. They shepherd me, I'm sometimes slightly directionless – I'm quite creative – but they say 'go this way' or nudge me that way, they'll give me quite critical and specific direction.

For example, they'll say, remember to go down on the last word in that sentence because it's funnier than if you go up on the last word of that sentence. It can be quite detailed direction, but it's a testament to how much they're invested in how it's executed because they manage me creatively.

Do you think younger viewers will see Alan Partridge differently from the viewers that grew up watching Knowing Me Knowing You?

Yes, younger viewers definitely see Alan differently because Alan has changed and he's not a small-minded, uber-conservative, white Little Englander now, he's someone who realises that if you want a career in television, you have to get with the programme.

He knows that, so he's desperately trying to appear to be beyond reproach in terms of new protocols and new ways of behaving. I think what's funny is seeing someone appearing to be on message, but grappling with it and you're not entirely sure whether he's sincere or not. And that's funnier than someone just being unpleasant or bigoted – it's funny to have somebody who's trying to be good.

What has been your favourite Alan Partridge moment that you've filmed?

Crikey! Favourite Partridge thing that we've filmed I think is Alan herding sheep. I literally herded sheep, it wasn't an act!

What I enjoyed about it was that Alan's really good at herding sheep, which is not what you'd expect – you'd think he'd make a hash of it. He's absolutely delighted about how good he is at it and offers to volunteer for the shepherd, he says if I have any spare time just call me and I'll come and help you herd the sheep. The shepherd gave me a few words to say: 'come by, walk on.'

Who is the most unexpected celebrity fan of Alan Partridge?

The chairman of the All-Ireland hurling team. That is true.

Do you think Alan has what it takes to be the next Jame Bond?

I think Alan thinks he's probably too old, but thinks had he taken a different fork in the road in his thirties or his twenties, maybe he would have thought that he could have been in that universe. I think he sometimes sheds a tear, but that horse has left the stable.

What would be Alan's ideal meal deal?

Prawn cocktail, steak and chips, black forest gateau. Alan doesn't eat at any fast food outlet.

What's Alan's go-to motorway services?

I think he likes Heston service station because it was one of the first ones when the first stretch of the M4 opened in the late 1960s I believe. He's also a big fan of Lancaster Service Station because it has a brutalist flying saucer on a kind of a shaft and it looks very futuristic and Alan likes that.

What is Alan's ideal date night?

A barbecue outside a camper van with Julia Bradbury in the Shropshire countryside.

Three things that we don't know about Alan?

Alan sometimes dreams that he is a female Olympic gymnast and that he scores ten out of ten on the beam and does a somersault and he realises he's beat the Russians.

Alan has part of a stethoscope inside him after a bungled operation he had in his forties.

Alan was once slapped in the face by a nun in the Duomo Cathedral in Palermo when hewas 25 years old.