Alan Partridge is making a “brave” return to the BBC after spending time in Saudi Arabia to “nurse his wounds” following his dismissal.
The new series will see Steve Coogan’s alter-ego “produce, present and direct Britain’s first ever documentary about mental health.”
How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) starts out as a documentary about homecoming, before morphing into something more personal “as Alan realises that the happiness he thought he’d feel at being back in Norwich just hasn’t materialised. Something’s missing.”
Viewers will follow Partridge as he sets out on a quest to “understand his funk” and share what he learns with the nation.
“The kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys extensive oil and natural gas reserves, but has also seen economic growth in other areas such as agricultural production, retail trade, construction, and transport,” stated Partridge.
“It directs some $69 billion to military expenditure each year. And yet despite all that, I somehow felt incomplete.”
Or as Sarah Monteith, Baby Cow CEO explained:
“We’re delighted Alan’s back from Saudi Arabia with his appetite for broadcasting undiminished.
“HAY? promises to be exactly the sort of uncompromising, state-of-the-nation piece that the country needs, almost as much as he does.”
READ MORE – Alan Partridge to address the state of the nation in new Baby Cow/BBC mockumentary
Steve Coogan explained that the Partridge character enabled him to talk about subjects like mental health.
“The thing about Alan is that you can use him to talk about difficult subject matters. Because it’s comedy, it sort of creates this safe space – it’s through the lens of a character, so it is a way of talking about things,” said Coogan.
“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 sort of enjoyable and not scary.
“Strangely I think it’s a cynical move to talk about mental health, it actually does help people talk about it. Ironically, although the series is funny and irreverent, it does actually throw up a lot of genuine issues about mental health, so it’s not just frivolous.”
Coogan works alongside long-term writing team Neil and Rob Gibbons on the series, they also direct.
“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 sort of ‘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 sort of 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 sort of 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 sort of manage me creatively.”
It’s now more than 30 years of Partridge, a character who started out on BBC Radio, before appearing on The Day Today.
“Some people ask: ‘why don’t you do lots of different characters?’ And I could 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.”
He continued:
“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.”
How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) is a 6 x 30’ Baby Cow production, it will air tonight (3rd October) on BBC One, with all 6 episodes available as a boxset on iPlayer.
It was written by Steve Coogan, Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, with Neil and Rob Gibbons directing. The producer is Joe Fraser and the executive producers are Steve Coogan, Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, Rupert Majendie and Sarah Monteith.
Baby Cow is owned by BBC Studios.
