For this sort-of-successor to "Knowing Me Knowing You", Steve Coogan and his writers took gormless failed TV chat-show host Alan Partridge further down the road of fading celebrity with this very sharp and very amusing series.
Partridge has ended up on the broadcasting scrap-heap, presenting the death-slot before the breakfast show on his local radio station in Norwich, never quite giving up on his hope of getting back into the big-time, retaining the services of his devoted and docile P.A. Lynn and living out of a hotel suite 24-7, although it's hardly the Ritz! The falsity of TV celebrity is exchanged for mock-realism as Partridge now interacts with recognisable everyday types, principally the staff of the cheap hotel he inhabits, which of course only highlights his own ridiculousness, making us laugh at him all the more.
Coogan uses a different band of actors from those employed on "KMKYWAP", an indecipherable ex-Army Geordie hotel porter, two mocking, chiding female hotel receptionists, a randy young attendant and his afore-mentioned long-suffering, mousy P.A. They all get to share in the laughs but as ever it's Alan himself with his straighter-than-straight, true-blue persona who makes you wince as much as giggle with a string of un-P.C. phrases and actions.
I could have done without his recurring daydream of dancing in a black thong as well as the tacky laugh-track which is unnecessarily employed, but otherwise these half-hour episodes are at least as funny as "KMKYWAP", which is no mean feat.
Partridge has ended up on the broadcasting scrap-heap, presenting the death-slot before the breakfast show on his local radio station in Norwich, never quite giving up on his hope of getting back into the big-time, retaining the services of his devoted and docile P.A. Lynn and living out of a hotel suite 24-7, although it's hardly the Ritz! The falsity of TV celebrity is exchanged for mock-realism as Partridge now interacts with recognisable everyday types, principally the staff of the cheap hotel he inhabits, which of course only highlights his own ridiculousness, making us laugh at him all the more.
Coogan uses a different band of actors from those employed on "KMKYWAP", an indecipherable ex-Army Geordie hotel porter, two mocking, chiding female hotel receptionists, a randy young attendant and his afore-mentioned long-suffering, mousy P.A. They all get to share in the laughs but as ever it's Alan himself with his straighter-than-straight, true-blue persona who makes you wince as much as giggle with a string of un-P.C. phrases and actions.
I could have done without his recurring daydream of dancing in a black thong as well as the tacky laugh-track which is unnecessarily employed, but otherwise these half-hour episodes are at least as funny as "KMKYWAP", which is no mean feat.