A-ha! 6 reasons we can't wait for Alan Partridge's big TV comeback

Happy Alan-tines Day! Alan Partridge is back on the BBC. Back of the net! Today, he has written a ‘Clearing The Air’ email to everyone at the BBC and tonight, he makes his hotly-anticipated return.

Written and directed by Neil and Rob Gibbons, alongside Steve Coogan himself, the concept, format and execution of Alan Partridge’s return to the big time has been perfectly orchestrated. The premise is that Alan is called in at the last minute to replace the ailing co-host of daily magazine show This Time, alongside regular host Jennie Gresham (Susannah Fielding).

Crucially, we see Partridge on and off air. The awkward attempts at banter with Gresham and excruciating on-air interviews with guests are punctuated by scenes before going on air or during a pre-recorded section, where we see off-screen Alan in the TV studio, alone with trusty PA Lynn and his desperation to take his unexpected second chance in the big time.

He’s learnt his lesson

Alan Partridge is not like Homer Simpson. The two comedy behemoths have much in common – not least their ability to get everything slightly wrong. But unlike Homer, Partridge learns from his mistakes. Sure, the process is slow, the lessons he takes may not be the obvious ones, and the results are patchy, but as he returns to the big stage, Partridge knows some of his inner thoughts are unacceptable or unpalatable to modern audiences. And he knows he needs to change.

He’s a bit more ‘David Cameron’

Thanks to Steve Coogan’s mastery over the decades, we can see into Partridge’s soul. We know what he is thinking. We can observe this inner struggle as he tries to avoid making the kind of politically incorrect howler that could bring him down – again. We know what has popped into his head.

A glint in his eye gives way to a visible calculation or the lopsided smirk fixes itself. At the first press screening of the show, Coogan compared this aspect of new Partridge to David Cameron: “He does try to be in tune with the zeitgeist. Twenty years ago, he was a kind of reactionary, right-wing, Daily Mail-type person. And now he’s a bit more like David Cameron, in that he understands you’ve got to be socially liberal.”

Alan Partridge just emailed everyone in the BBC. pic.twitter.com/DM3POwgIDu

— Tim Johns (@timoncheese) February 25, 2019

A lot is at stake

Viewers know, just as Partridge knows, exactly what is at stake. His last big show on the BBC, Knowing Me, Knowing You, ended with Partridge accidentally shooting a guest and attacking a BBC commissioner. It has been a long road back – via North Norfolk Digital radio and Sky Atlantic. So, This Time? He’s got to make it work. Even one of television’s least self aware people knows he may never get this chance again.

Don’t forget Lynn

At his side, Lynn also wants Alan back on top – maybe that would make her years of suffering, belittlement and embarrassment worthwhile. She also has an ego. She also wants to be back in the big time. There’s a joyous new determination in her to make it work for Alan on This Time whatever it takes.

He’s a professional

Thanks to the sublime format, we see all sides of Alan Partridge. So we him on screen, all slickness and self-satisfied smirking on the surface, with that fear and desperation lurking somewhere below the layers of make-up. This Partridge, an unholy cocktail of Richard Madeley and Des Lynam, is unstoppable. He knows when he’s goofed. But he is such a professional, he maintains his air of impregnability until the cameras stop rolling.

As Coogan says: “When you have him on camera, and he knows there’s a camera there, you gain something because it’s about how he edits his behaviour knowing he’s being watched. And when you go into his private life, then we know his innermost thoughts.”

This is the big time

So the joy of This Time is that we also see him when the cameras stop rolling. Partridge is desperate to concoct on-screen rapport with his new co-host, even after she steals one of his jokes. He has a chance to re-establish himself in the big time, to be the kind of staple pop culture figure he has always been in his own head and he is determined to seize the day.

There has always been a desperation with Alan Partridge. A desperate urge to be understood, to be respected by his peers, to be part of the media establishment and not this craven outsider joke figure.

This Time With Alan Partridge airs on Mondays on BBC1 at 9.30pm

Image: BBC