Partridge writers Peter Baynham and Neil and Rob Gibbons reveal what they've learned about East Anglia's everyman philosopher
Mr Partridge will see you now
Peter Baynham When I first heard Alan on On The Hour, which I wasn't involved in, it felt like a new kind of comedy. I hadn't seen or heard anything like it before. As I became more involved, I remember thinking he didn't feel like a one-joke character; there was something three-dimensional about this guy, something real. Without someone as talented as Steve Coogan, he could just have been "the comedy sports presenter".
Rob Gibbons Neil and I had been on the writing circuit for a while when we ended up writing for Steve's live tour in 2008. We were really on board to do Paul and Pauline Calf because Steve thought that would fit with our northern mindset. But we decided to pitch some Alan stuff on spec and that led to Mid-Morning Matters.
Neil Gibbons We weren't Partridge obsessives but we obviously knew the character. Anyone who's our age is into Partridge. But we didn't have a checklist that we applied when writing Alan, it was about creating a much more nebulous worldview. So no Bond, no Wings, no Corby trouser presses …
RG Now we've been doing Partridge for over three years straight. It's great that Steve and Armando [Iannucci] gave us that level of trust because if that character was my baby I'd find it hard to hand over that much responsibility. It was flattering that they thought we were up to the job. What we've tried to do is move Alan along a bit. You can't change him fundamentally, but he now has the worldview of someone slightly older.
Finding Alan's Voice
RG A great deal of getting into Alan's headspace is me, Neil and Steve sitting around a table saying things that Alan would say. It can be tricky because although Steve doesn't really do the voice, you can tell he's doing a bit of the voice – and then you feel you have to do the voice. But how can you be Alan in front of Alan?
PB In theory, when you're writing a character, you're supposed to create subtext, put someone's real opinions and feelings beneath a layer of something else. But with Alan, it's almost the opposite. He can't contain what's happening in his head, there's no brake on his mouth. You can instantly see whatever pain or confusion he's going through. It's a terrible admission, but Alan used to say the stuff that went through my mind in social situations, the stuff that I tried not to say.
Familiarity breeds cliche
NG When Rob and I started writing Alan, I think if we'd known what cereal he had for breakfast, what brands he wore and what films he loved, it might have straitjacketed us. I did go back and revisit the earlier shows, though. Partly, it was revising, because Steve doesn't really rewatch his own stuff or know it by heart, so sometimes he might come up with a similar joke.
RG People will shout stuff at Steve in the street and he thinks they're abusing him but it's actually a line from Alan. They're trying to be nice to him.
The power of positive thinking
PB There is a desperation to Alan but he's generally an incredibly positive person. We saw the dark time in I'm Alan Partridge when he put on all that weight and did Crash! Bang! Wallop! What A Video! But you really don't want to see Alan be consciously navel-gazing and wearing that desperation on his sleeve. At the same time, in the second series of I'm Alan Partridge we struggled over giving him a girlfriend because when you see Alan with a girlfriend, he's almost got more than you want him to have. So we had to make the relationship between him and Sonja the most dysfunctional, terrible relationship imaginable. Despite the fact that people say he's awful, a lot of the time we were trying to build empathy: you're watching a man suffer but also at some level identifying with his pain.
NG When Mid-Morning Matters first came out and he was working for an even smaller digital radio station, people thought it would be even sadder and darker, but we actually felt he was more at peace with himself. So even though we put Alan in farcical or embarrassing situations, he's never a particularly tragic figure to us.
RG If he had more self-awareness, that would be the tragedy. It's the fact that he lacks that knowledge of who he is that actually saves him in some way. He is quite content, I think.
For ever a man out of time
PB Alan was actually ahead of the curve. There are so many reality shows now and a cult of people just wanting to be famous, and he really was one of the originals. He just wanted to be on telly and he stated that very baldly. He wanted to have a profile. But he's mellowed as he's got older. Rob and Neil are amazing writers, and Alan has become ever more fleshed out.
Writing the book on Alan
NG Writing Alan's autobiography [2011 bestseller I, Partridge] was real Partridge saturation. Rob and I would do a chapter each, and I'd be sat there in silence on my own at home, with no small talk. What you see in the book is the inner workings of Alan. We could mine a different style of comedy.
RG Because of the amount of words and level of detail required we couldn't actually create it round a table. We were terrified because we only had a short time to write it.
NG It helped that we could take Alan's approach to writing. If I was sat there trying to think of an appropriate simile, I'd literally use the first one I came up with. I could get through a fair amount of words each day by applying the same slapdash approach to quality control that Alan would have.
RG It did make you want to lie down on your bed afterwards, though.
The boy who cried "chat"
PB Alan still has this childlike side to him. There's a bit in Alpha Papa where he's with Lynn and he thinks things are going really well and then suddenly they aren't, and he looks just like a little boy who thought he was going to Disneyland and suddenly it's not happening. And that physicality is what Steve brings to the role. It's a complex performance.
Even in his own movie, he struggles to be a hero
RG I'm sure Alan has fantasised millions of times about being in an armed siege like in Alpha Papa, but when you put him in that situation he can't really enjoy it because he's terrified. He might try and do something that Bruce Willis would do but obviously it will just fail.
PB On Knowing Me, Knowing You, he may have been a terrible presenter with poor social skills but he would take down a lot of pretentious people every week, exposing a puffed-up fashion designer or a pompous author. That's quite heroic.
There's a bit of Alan in all of us
NG Alan is constantly attempting some version of himself and the reason he's such a laughable figure is because he doesn't have a sense of who he is, because he's trying to come across as cool or tough or intelligent. But that's something we all do. It's when you take a leap at one of those versions of yourself and fail that I think your Partridgeness comes out.
PB I certainly feel more like Partridge as I get older. I hope Steve never stops playing Alan, and can't imagine anyone ever replacing him. Unless Alan actually exists, in which case God help us all!
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is released on 7 Aug
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jul/27/alan-partridge-a-look-inside-his-mind
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