By Paul Glynn

Copyright bbc

When Alan returned from his hiatus in the 2010s, in the YouTube series Mid Morning Matters and spoof autobiography I, Partridge, a new writing team was in place.

Screenwriting brothers Neil and Rob Gibbons helped Coogan to slowly fall back in love with him.

“It took a while,” admits Coogan. “I was doing a live show, and I asked them to write something and it was brilliant – almost but not quite perfect.

“And since then, they’ve just taken the reins and they have breathed new life into the character, given me new confidence and we took it off in a different direction.”

The trio worked together on the Partridge movie, Alpha Papa – alongside Iannucci and Baynham – and another Bafta-winning series Scissored Isle, as well as the TV magazine programme This Time and podcast From the Oasthouse.

Coogan believes Partridge’s longevity is down to him having “evolved” into a more “three-dimensional” figure, capable of evoking “pathos”.

Neil Gibbons says in the early days Partridge was surrounded by “reasonable” people, meaning he would often be the one saying something “stupid”.

Their trick, he reveals, was to surround him with people who are worse, like his new girlfriend Katrina.

“Alan often, in a clumsy way, says things that as an audience you agree with,” he explains. “It just gives you another angle of attack, as otherwise you run out of ways he can say the wrong thing or lose his temper with someone.”