Alan Partridge: Welcome To The Places Of My Life

Steve Coogan interview

The comedian and actor reveals just how much of himself there is in his most famous comedy creation.

Radio Times review

A guide to the "Wales of the East", Norfolk, by the man who put Norwich on the chat map. Alan Partridge takes us to his workplace, his favoured newsagents and along his regular Thetford Forest walking route. It is, as the man himself says: ‎"A Partridge pilgrimage. A Partrimage. A Pilgrimartridge. A Partrimiligrimage." But he's also keen on Norwich's rich past, including Hitler's plan to give a victory address from the town hall balcony. Imagine that...

Partridge has evolved since Steve Coogan hooked up with co-writers Neil Gibbons and Rob Gibbons, architects of Alan's sensationally funny autobiography. He can be a vehicle for spoofery - the hysterical history-in-hindsight of Schama, Marr et al gets it in the neck - and, as credited producer/director, his editing hand is now visible.

But he's still thoroughly Partridgean. There's not a weak scene in the hour and many that are worth re-playing for superb nuances of script and performance, from the simple joy of Alan almost falling off a stile to some wordless moments of pathos that remind us he is almost real. Top drawer.

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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.

Alan Partridge: Welcome to the Places of My Life review

Alan's latest outing, Welcome to the Places of My Life, is even stronger than it's been in previous programmes.

Subtitled 'Welcome To The Places Of My Life', this is Steve Coogan's broadcaster buffoon on a new channel for a guided tour of his native Norfolk - the "Wales of the East", as he would have it. The last series of Partridge on the BBC fell short of the usual brilliance but the recent autobiography and those beer-sponsored online shows seem to have revitalised him.

Alan bounces back with an hour-long special, the first of two for Sky Atlantic. In a note-perfect parody of the sort of lightweight travelogue prersented by Griff Rhys Jones, complete with cheapo graphics and amateurish editing, Welcome To The Places Of My Life sees Partridge providing a social history of the Norwich that made him. The concept drags a touch over the extended running time but there are many wonderful moments, especially the revelation that Partridge likes to imagine the sheep in a nearby field as people who have wronged him: "Andrew Marr, the Dimbleby brothers, loads of builders."

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