Dan Snow

By rights, Alan Partridge should have been dead as a character years ago, the last drops of humour long since wrung out of the local radio presenter from Norwich, but Steve Coogan keeps finding ways to make him feel fresh.

It's not so much a reinvention as a layering process. Coogan knows we know Partridge, so he doesn't waste time or insult his audience by writing unnecessary scenes to re-establish his character: rather it feels as if we are starting where we last left off and the pleasure comes from Partridge continuing to reveal more of himself than he actually intended. As the cracks in his public persona widen, he becomes a genuinely darker, more complex, more interesting character. And more sympathetic - though that could say more about my attraction to the twisted.

The set-up was a parody of any number of early evening TV documentaries in which a minor celebrity fills an hour of screen time by pottering around some fairly dull places, talking to fairly dull people while trying to convince everyone it's all enormously interesting. On its own, this would have made good comedy, as there were also sideswipes at Bear Grylls' and Dan Snow's annoying presentational tics of adding drama to the tediously mundane. But with Partridge it's always what you don't expect that makes him so well worth watching. His piece about Norwich city hall that started off as a riff on The King's Speech and ended with him fantasising about Hitler making a victory speech from the balcony with the bronze lions below raising their paws in Nazi salutes was just wonderful.

There were any number of other great moments, such as Partridge taking over the fruit and veg market stall and saying: "I had a go at doing the things it's taken Mike 25 years to learn, and it was a piece of piss. But I like Mike. He's a sort of village idiot from years gone by"; or Partridge test-driving a Range Rover, saying: "I bet you think we just included this because I wanted to have a go in one"; you just know there are out-takes like these in every documentary maker's editing suite.

John Crace, The Guardian, 25th June 2012

It's often said that growing old gives you the freedom to complain about everything and anything. So it's no surprise that youngsters are now racing the oldies in their mission to moan.

Anyone with a Dad, Mum or vague middle aged relative will have heard of Grumpy Old Men / Grumpy Old Women. Little more than the filmed testimonies of various irritable celebrities, each series was hilarious viewing for both young and old in their cutting deconstruction of some of society's most baffling trends and sociological subgroups.

Never one to let a rant-inducing phenomenon pass us by, Comedy Central is back with a brand new one-hour special focusing on crotchety, grouchy young men.

Narrated by Robert Webb (who plays our generation's grump spokesman Jez in Peep Show), the programme features hilariously acerbic ranty rambles from a mixture of young comedians and celebs - Dan Snow, Alex Collier, Jack P Shepherd (Corrie's David Platt) and Matt Willis.

From dating to obesity and the modern day obsession with fame, this is a brilliantly witty, guilty pleasure that manages to rant about everything we've always wanted to but have felt socially obligated to put up with.

Sky, 21st October 2009