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Alan Partridge has become a “Trojan horse” to talk about “taboo” subjects that make people anxious, Steve Coogan has said.
The hapless TV character is returning to the BBC in How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) – 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.
It 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.
The actor said Partridge was a “good conduit” to discuss “popular culture … and things that are difficult. Or say things that are perhaps taboo or would be difficult to talk about as … a private person.”
“You [can] say things through the character or talk about stuff that’s potentially problematic,” Coogan said, adding: “It’s 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.
“It feels relevant to do stuff which … gives people anxiety. It’s a way of talking about stuff that people can’t normally talk about. It’s a sort of Trojan horse.”
He continued: “We highlight things by showing Alan’s small mindedness and prejudice, but sometimes he stumbles accidentally on shining a light on something, and can say that the emperor’s not wearing any clothes [and] say the unsayable.”
Speaking at a screening of the new show in London, Coogan also said Partridge – who first appeared in 1991 Radio 4 series On the Hour – was now popular with gen Z, especially on TikTok, because, “that 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.”
The show’s co-writers and directors, Neil and Rob Gibbons, said Partridge was also a “reflection of a lot of white, middle-aged, middle-class men of a certain age … the world’s changed too fast for them and they’re actually really scared [and] don’t really know what to do about it.”
They added: “As soon as we started talking about Saudi Arabia, then we were interested.” 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.
Coogan added he liked the Saudi scenes “because it makes me feel anxious watching it”.
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.
In a time when male hosts have lost their jobs due to their previous behaviour, Coogan said Alan would “definitely” be worried about being cancelled: “He feels the walls closing in, so he’s rapidly trying to think of an escape plan” by putting “on a millennial uniform”, shown by his attempt to tap into the trend for celebrities talking about mental health.
“We 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,” said Coogan.
The character has also been given a domineering new girlfriend Katrina, whom he describes as, “one of the fittest women over 40 in Norfolk” and whom, the Gibbons brothers said, was originally based on Liz Truss.
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How Are You? It’s Alan Partridge airs on BBC One and iPlayer from 3 October
