If you’ve ever lived in a major city, then you probably know the pure terror of someone trying to make eye contact with you on public transport.
But for actor and comedian Steve Coogan, this white-hot dread goes beyond a tourist asking you if you’re finished with your paper – preferably the Metro – or a sadomasochist wondering the quickest way to M&M World.
For the last three decades, Steve has played Alan Partridge, one of the UK’s best-loved comic characters. The ‘broadcaster, newscaster, sportscaster and thoughtscaster’ – his words, not ours – Alan Partridge.
Co-created by Steve and writer Armando Iannucci, Alan is a parody of C-list presenters with an ego bigger than an XXL Toblerone and a stardom so dim he’d struggle to make the guest list at your local Greggs.
Yet despite his immense character flaws, Brits – especially men of a certain age – can’t get enough of Alan Gordon Partridge.
Which brings us back to Steve, 56, and his occasionally uncomfortable train journeys, where he’ll hear Alan’s old catchphrase warbled by a fellow passenger.
‘If I’m in a crowded train, and someone shouts, it’s really not welcome,’ he admits to Metro when we sit down with him, ahead of the release of his podcast Alan Partridge – From the Oasthouse series 4. ’Normally, that’s where it happens.’
‘Most of the time, no one bothers me,’ he laughs. ‘But I try to avoid making eye contact with white middle-aged men, because that’s a recipe for disaster.’
Despite his ambivalence to Alan’s old catchphrase, Steve has definitely grown to love the character he once called an ‘albatross around his neck’.
He tells me that while he never wanted Partridge to ‘feel like a contractual obligation’ and that stepping away from the character is ‘really important’ to him, he’s grown to see Alan as a ‘really comfy set of clothes you’d slob around the house in’.
Indeed, he’s perfectly frank that over the years, the line between Partridge and himself has blurred.
I am the middle-aged man Steve Coogan tries to avoid…
Our Deputy TV Editor explains why he loves Alan Partridge…
I admit it – and did to Steve when I spoke to him – I am the type of person who’d spot Steve on the train and have to resist the urge to shout ‘Dan’ or ‘Aha’!
That’s tremendously uncool of me to admit I know, but Alan means a great deal to me.
You see, my dad introduced me to Alan when I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager, and watching Alan storm around the Linton Travel Tavern or recreate James Bond in his caravan was a real bonding experience for the pair of us.
But beyond that, knowing Partridge quotes was for me, and many others, like knowing a secret second language. There’s joy in peppering your speech with a little Alan-ism (the more obscure the better) every now and again, and waiting for someone to react to it.
It’s like you’re both speaking in a code that effortlessly bonds you without the need for small talk. You’re connected in a special way because you can say with 100% certainty, Steve Coogan doesn’t want to talk to you on a train.
‘Some of Alan’s views are absolutely diametrically opposed to my own,’ he admits. ‘But some of it is what I sometimes, in my more visceral moments, secretly think, but understand, is wrong.
‘There’s no secret that I’ll meet with Neil and Rob Gibbons [his co-writers] and say stuff as me and they’ll literally just write it down, barely modified from what I’ve said myself to them that morning before we start writing.’
Steve’s comfort – and dare I say love – of the character is clear. Since bringing Alan out of an unofficial hiatus in 2010, barely a year has gone by without us getting a small slice of Partridge pie.
In the last decade, Alan has spoofed magazine shows, celebrity documentaries, mid-morning radio, and podcasts.
Yet despite the character’s seemingly limitless adaptability, there’s one place that Steve, Neil and Rob have never taken the Norwich legend.
It’s an avenue that seems ripe with comedic potential for a conservative character like Alan, who finds himself on the fringes of the media world; they’ve never had him spoof GB News or other news channels that people regard as right-wing.
‘Early on, we gave Alan a sort of reactionary outlook,’ Steve tells me. ‘But we moved away from that.’
Looking at the media landscape from Alan’s perspective, Steve believes that his character sees the media as taking more of a ‘centre-left worldview’ than a channel like GB News might convey.
‘The GB News worldview might have great traction, but it’s certainly not all-pervasive in the media,’ he adds.
Laughing, he explains how Alan’s no doubt taken a look at the media and thought he’s better tracking to the left than the right.
‘I always used to say he was like David Cameron,’ He explains, ‘but I think he’s a bit like David Cameron and Keir Starmer combined, a monster mashup of Starmer and Cameron.’
That, more than slightly self-serving evolution from reactionary to a more sympathetic position, is the secret to Alan’s success in Steve’s mind.
‘It wasn’t just that the character itself evolved, the approach to writing the character has as well,’ he explains.
‘The idea of Alan trying to lean into the Zeitgeist and be somehow aligned with modern thinking made not only the character feel relevant… but we as writers think it’s funnier.’
‘If Alan were just a fixed curmudgeon, reactionary, that could be funny, but it runs out of steam after a while. For some reason, we find the idea of him trying to be hip and trendy funnier.’
Indeed, Steve believes Alan’s oblivious attempts at nuance are much more amusing than having him be a simple satire of right-wing rent-a-gobs.
In fact, for Steve, the secret sauce to Partridge is the moments we see Alan slip up and reveal his hidden reactionary side.
‘The panic. That’s one of my favourite things, panic in his eyes,’ he admits. ‘He has enough self-awareness to realise what he’s done.’
So, will we see more Alan gaffes in the future? Well, Steve’s clearly got plenty of ideas tumbling around his brain like trainers in a washing machine.
There’s an upcoming TV series – Alan Partridge: How Are You? – and there was a brief moment during our chat where Steve seemed taken with the idea of taking Alan on the after-dinner speaking circuit.
Still, he was clear that he and the Gibbons have a rule for brand Partridge.
‘The golden rule is to ask, “Do we as a writing group feel like we have got the enthusiasm to do things… Do we have something in the tank?”
‘As long as something is rooted in truth, that feels organic…we should do it. And I’m sure we will.’
Series 4 of From the Oasthouse: The Alan Partridge Podcast is available to download now on Audible.
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