Alan Partridge comes to BBC America

Overall a slightly disappointing series - I feel the tone wasn't particularly well managed, and it was often quite self indulgent. When it was good it was very good, though.

Wasn't it explicit that it hadn't gone well, ie Lynn not telling him it had gone well, the interview with the African water guy going badly, the exec producer being v angry at him?

the interview ended in a pretty deft exposé, the exec producer is angry but it’s not clear why, and lynn’s poor judgement had been called out a couple of times earlier iirc. to me it really feels like it could go either way.

Overall a slightly disappointing series - I feel the tone wasn't particularly well managed, and it was often quite self indulgent. When it was good it was very good, though.

yeah, it missed the mark a hell of a lot, but the best bits were classic alan.

https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2019/04/05/42703/alan_partridge_to_front_a_sweeping_history_of_britain

filming in may.

some people have been knocking the gibbons era but this has been absolutely fine. ‘this time’ is definitely better without the weight of expectation (in australia it’s just gone up on iview so i’m watching them all again), and i maintain that ‘welcome to the places of my life’ is easily one of the best pieces of partridge in existence.

Overall a slightly disappointing series - I feel the tone wasn't particularly well managed, and it was often quite self indulgent. When it was good it was very good, though.

That about sums it up really

Disappointed we didn't get to see Ruth in the last episode

some people have been knocking the gibbons era

I've liked all the stuff they've done up to now, but 'This Time' felt too much like Partridge fan fiction to me. Did enjoy the CPR doll/Another One Bites The Dust scene, though, and his fantastic selection of jackets.

interesting you should say that, because to me the cpr scene felt more like fanfic than anything in the whole series

on rewatching the whole thing in a day, the quality of the writing really jumps out. the dialogue is crafted to within an inch of its life, even if some of the broader aspects don’t land, and the acting (especially from fielding) is far better than i remember from classic partridge.

the series arcs were pretty jarring though: the ruth thing building up and then just stopping, the way they handled simon and lucy hooking up, jennie suddenly storming out in the last one.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/feb/15/the-trip-series-four-greece-rob-brydon-steve-coogan

3rd of March

Yeah. I’m seeing the new Winterbottom-Coogan film tomorrow and frankly it looks really shit but I’m not above being psyched for a new series of this

this time series 2 and a podcast coming

hopefully the travel/history show is still coming too, and isn't reduced to segments in This Time

yeah, this doesn’t exactly sound promising for its survival (assuming it’s the same thing)

Coogan also said that he had other plans for the character, explaining: 'There might be a documentary series with Alan roving around Britain.'

guessing at this stage that the Beeb wanted more of the thing that had been on the Beeb already, dgaf about more of the thing that had been on Sky Atlantic previously

makes complete sense tbh

i’m listening to nomad again, and had forgotten just how brilliant parts of it are, to whit:

‘twas the night before alan’s walk
and all through the house
not a creature was stirring
not even an alan

he delivers this, then condescendingly states the importance of poetry containing a rhyme so that the reader knows the author isn’t just lazy. but the poem he only just delivered doesn’t rhyme.

one of my favourite things about the gibbons era is the punchlines which cap off multiple jokes at once. a brilliant example is him saying candle in the wind was about “marilyn monroe, princess diana… there are others” — the two jokes being a) he can’t think of any others and b) there weren’t any others. it’s proper genius imo.

how weird, I'm just watching that Candle In The Wind episode right now!

it’s such a good episode too. this time is a lot better on third/fourth viewing. loads of classic alan.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/sep/02/alan-partridge-podcast-interview-boris-johnson-oasthouse

Podcast on Audible. I don't have an account though, anyone know how podcasts work on it as in, can I get the free trial and dl them all or will they be spread out?

When I did a free trial to get Butterfly Effect I was able to get them all, but they may decide to space these out - dunno

the preview episode was so bloody good. this should be some of the best alan in a long time.

you have to go back to the 2017 Red Nose Day Stonkers voiceover to hit recent Alan that isn't very good to excellent though

yeah that’s true, i just think this is shaping up to be better than this time, both books, scissored isle &c.

like, the whole sequence of him rambling is just astonishingly funny and original in the alan canon

or a callback to Christmas 1994 :)

(I think this is the first Partridgiana that situates him in Norfolk, too)

Mid Morning Matters is the best Partridge of the past decade (haven't heard the podcast yet).

true, this probably won’t eclipse mmmwap

sic: ‘welcome to the places of my life’ was set & shot in norwich

Seems to be 18 podcast episodes up at about 25 minutes each. With an audible trial you can get the whole lot

I'm an episode and a half in and so far it's great.

AA - I meant the sketch I posted, which was 18 years before Places Of My Life :)

Weird that this is something you have to spend a credit on rather than one of the Amazon originals ‘included with your membership’

I enjoy it but can’t listen on headphones , it’s too much Alan, too intimate. Over a small speaker like old timey radio style is perfect

someone do a revive when it is on slsk

diy

Okay I was legit lolling through episode two numerous times, which was offputting because I was listening to it while I ran.

downloaded it, now I just need to figure out a way/time to listen to it

I had to turn it off in the car because I was laughing too hard.

AA - I meant the sketch I posted, which was 18 years before Places Of My Life :)

― erratic wolf angular guitarist (sic), 2020年9月4日 星期五 上午 5:59 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

agh of course you were, wish i could read tbh

i’m just over halfway through, and it’s not MidMorMat brilliant but still heaps worthy of existing. plenty of classic moments and even some of the most effective pathos in the canon.

Coogan's performance is so incredibly and hilariously detailed in this, especially thrilling after my disappointment with same in Nomad

I’ve tried listening to it and doing other things and that hasn’t worked out. It demands full attention

Yeah, I'm enjoying it a lot but finding it hard to find times I can hear but am not going to fall asleep

for people that can't be arsed pissing away time or money nor audible signups to experience this so so, pretty non-essential AP material, it's on slsk now!

Aha!

this should be some of the best alan in a long time.

The episode where Alan goes to Lynn's house is one of the best Partridge things ever.

(it is also infuriating and very stupid that it wasn't released as separate episodes.)

The head's too big for the body

Every episode I've listened to has been great so far, and much better than last year's TV series IMO. The bit in like the second episode where he was talking about his dog savaging a guy who was walking past the Oasthouse with a sandwich and who refused to drop said sandwich made me weep with laughter.

What's curious about the whole discussion here is - Partridge is still good. Very good. And has been through multiple instances and formats.

Few characters or comedy ideas remain this good for this long?

because he isn't Harry Enfield for a start! I was listening to a clip on 4extra of his R4 comedy debut in the 80's, where he plays a hapless stand-up comedian saying stuff like "you lot would go down well in a graveyard" + "did you hear about the Irish lampost? it pissed on a dog" and I was pmsl!

Sandy Stone did, though only through one-act monologue plays a couple of times a decade.

Partridge (29 years) has a way to go to beat Edna Everage (64 years, and not necessarily out yet), who has at least as many formats as Partridge and while the character does not have the depth of Alan - especially after her elevation to Damehood, twenty years in - and has been in some ill-designed projects, remained funny across stand-up, revue, radio, scripted theatre, semi-scripted TV, talk shows as both guest and host, supporting character in film, comedy book, fictional autobiography, sitcom actor, theatre improv, live in-person appearances, game-show hosting and advertising spokesperson.

Last one reminds me: iirc, and I may not, her equivalent was deliberately portrayed as annoying and unfunny in Humphries' roman a clef