By Benji Wilson
Copyright brisbanetimes
The “we” Coogan talks about is himself and his writing partners, Neil and Rob Gibbons. Alongside Coogan, the Gibbons brothers have been Alan’s surrogate brain ever since the series of YouTube shorts, Mid-Morning Matters, in the 2010s. Over that time, Alan has become more and more depleted, while the comedy has taken him into the culture wars and identity politics – anywhere his creators consider dangerous ground. It’s only possible, Coogan says, because Alan Partridge has been around for so long and done so much.
“Thirty years of people investing in the character means that it gives you licence to do stuff that you couldn’t do with a new character now,” says Coogan. “Thirty years of provenance allows you to go places that are very difficult for any other comedy to go to. It’s because there’s a certain trust that’s built up, a trust that you won’t abuse people – or if you look like you are abusing people, that you’re doing it in good faith.”
It means Partridge provides a welcome outlet for his creator and amanuensis: “Any topic which is difficult and that probably I, personally, couldn’t speak about publicly without annoying some people somewhere, of whatever their political persuasions or their worldview, with Alan you can talk about it.”
For Coogan, using Alan as a mouthpiece is not only an opportunity to get laughs, but it’s also a potential balm.
“There are all these tribal, attritional conflicts online,” he says. “If you bring some humour into it, as long as the humour isn’t destructive or hateful; if you laugh at something, you can sort of make it seem less scary. So I actually think it’s a genuine, positive thing you can do because as long as you spread the mockery evenly around, then you can make things easier to talk about.”
In How Are You? Alan Partridge dresses and looks more than ever like the British right-wing populist MP Nigel Farage. Ironically, over time, Partridge’s regressive attitudes and conservative, jingoistic political stance has found its way back into the mainstream. He could easily get a job these days doing spluttering punditry on adversarial platforms such as Sky News or Britain’s GB News.
