How Are You? It\u2019s Alan (Partridge)<\/a> \u2013 a new series featuring him returning to the UK having been doing promotional work in Saudi Arabia and attempting to rebuild his career through a documentary about mental health.<\/p>\nIt has been four years since Partridge last appeared on the BBC. Coogan says he and his co-writers bring the veteran presenter back when there is something to say about UK culture and society.<\/p>\n
The actor said Partridge was a \u201cgood conduit\u201d to discuss \u201cpopular culture \u2026 and things that are difficult. Or say things that are perhaps taboo or would be difficult to talk about as \u2026 a private person.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou [can] say things through the character or talk about stuff that\u2019s potentially problematic,\u201d Coogan said, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s good to talk about stuff that is seen as taboo, not just to be provocative, but because you actually can, weirdly, shine a light on it and be more honest about it in some ways, by using Alan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels relevant to do stuff which \u2026 gives people anxiety. It\u2019s a way of talking about stuff that people can\u2019t normally talk about. It\u2019s a sort of Trojan horse.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cWe highlight things by showing Alan\u2019s small mindedness and prejudice, but sometimes he stumbles accidentally on shining a light on something, and can say that the emperor\u2019s not wearing any clothes [and] say the unsayable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at a screening of the new show in London, Coogan also said Partridge \u2013 who first appeared in 1991 Radio 4 series On the Hour \u2013 was now popular with gen Z, especially on TikTok, because, \u201cthat generation sees their parents in Partridge. They see that sort of trying to be relevant or not square, trying to be on message somehow, and that struggle of trying to be hip with their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s co-writers and directors, Neil and Rob Gibbons, said Partridge was also a \u201creflection of a lot of white, middle-aged, middle-class men of a certain age \u2026 the world\u2019s changed too fast for them and they\u2019re actually really scared [and] don\u2019t really know what to do about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
They added: \u201cAs soon as we started talking about Saudi Arabia, then we were interested.\u201d During the series, Partridge is shown doing Saudi Arabia promos after work dries up after a disastrous stint hosting fictitious The One Show-style programme This Time.<\/p>\n
Coogan added he liked the Saudi scenes \u201cbecause it makes me feel anxious watching it\u201d.<\/p>\n
Partridge also reflects the concerns of some older presenters when he is shown panicking after accidentally playing an old audition tape of him doing an Asian accent.<\/p>\n
In a time when male hosts have lost their jobs due to their previous behaviour, Coogan said Alan would \u201cdefinitely\u201d be worried about being cancelled: \u201cHe feels the walls closing in, so he\u2019s rapidly trying to think of an escape plan\u201d by putting \u201con a millennial uniform\u201d, shown by his attempt to tap into the trend for celebrities talking about mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to build in to the premise ways that Alan can have jeopardy surrounded. So you have to give him a high wire. And mental health is obviously a subject that he knows very little about,\u201d said Coogan.<\/p>\n
The character has also been given a domineering new girlfriend Katrina, whom he describes as, \u201cone of the fittest women over 40 in Norfolk\u201d and whom, the Gibbons brothers said, was originally based on Liz Truss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alan Partridge has become a \u201cTrojan horse\u201d to talk about \u201ctaboo\u201d subjects that make people anxious, Steve Coogan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-162783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}