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List of I'm Alan Partridge episodes

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I'm Alan Partridge is a BBC situation comedy starring Steve Coogan, of which two series of six episodes each were produced—the first in 1997 and the second in 2002. The series followed the titular Alan Partridge, a failed television presenter whose previous exploits had featured in the chat-show parody Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, and who is now presenting a programme on local radio in Norwich.

Both series were written by Peter Baynham (who also appears in one episode), Coogan and Armando Iannucci; supporting Coogan were Felicity Montagu as his faithful but timid personal assistant, Lynn Benfield; Simon Greenall as Geordie Travel Tavern handyman/BP garage attendant Michael; and Phil Cornwell as disc jockey Dave Clifton.

It has been well received by both critics and fans, and was nominated for three BAFTAs (winning two), two British Comedy Award (winning both), and a Royal Television Society award.

Series one was first released on DVD in the UK in 2002 and in the United States on 24 October 2006. The DVD features additional scenes and two commentary tracks. One featuring standard commentary from the writers whilst the second features Coogan and Montagu 'in character' as Alan & Lynn discussing the events in the episodes and frequently arguing with each other.

Series overview

Series Episodes Originally aired
First aired Last aired
1 6 3 November 1997 (1997-11-03) 8 December 1997 (1997-12-08)
2 6 11 November 2002 (2002-11-11) 16 December 2002 (2002-12-16)

Episode list

Series 1 (1997)

No. Title Directed by Written by Original air date
1"A Room with an Alan"Dominic Brigstocke [2]Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci[2]3 November 1997 (1997-11-03)

Alan's wife Carol has kicked him out and he is living at Linton Travel Tavern, a hotel near the A11 in Cambridgeshire. He tells the hotel's manager Susan that his wife is living with a fitness instructor and that insulting graffiti has been sprayed on his car. He encounters handyman Michael, whom he asks to remove the graffiti, but has difficulty understanding Michael due to his strong Geordie accent.

Alan and Lynn view a 5-bedroomed show house, where Alan displays his eccentric behaviour, and manages both to confuse and to bore the estate agent. Alan agrees to buy the house for £324,000, which is £1,000 less than its asking price.

Alan has lunch at BBC Television Centre with Tony Hayers (David Schneider), the fictional programme commissioner of the BBC, about the possibility of a second series of Knowing Me, Knowing You. Apparently unaware of how low his chances really are, he puts the nail in the coffin by reading out an array of ridiculous, badly thought-out programme ideas that bewilder and annoy Tony. When Tony tells him he is not to be re-commissioned, Alan thrusts a large lump of cheese into his face and flees the restaurant with the cheese.

After talking to Lynn, Alan returns to his hotel room, attempts to order an Irish coffee, turns on "Jet" by Wings and gives himself a black eye while attempting an athletic leap from his bed to the mini-bar.[1]
2"Alan Attraction"Dominic Brigstocke [4]Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci[4]10 November 1997 (1997-11-10)

Without a second series of his programme, Alan is nearing bankruptcy and chooses to fire the staff at his company, Peartree Productions, rather than downsize his car. However, when the staff ask him if he has a second series, Alan panics, and tells them that he has been successful.

While the staff prepare a party, and Jill, his flirtatious, chain-smoking, 50-year-old, divorced receptionist (Julia Deakin) goes out to buy some snacks, Alan tries to extricate himself by firing staff members for various "offences," such as leaving an unwashed coffee cup on the table and rolling eyes. Whilst he locks himself in his boardroom, the staff leave. Jill returns, wondering where everyone has got to (he tells her they have gone to a spice museum) and the two go on a date to a nearby owl sanctuary, where Alan's attempts at conversation bewilder Jill. In the evening, the two attend a Valentine's Day dinner at the Travel Tavern, where Alan makes a fool of himself by badly singing "Close To You" by The Carpenters for her with the hired band, and Lynn attempts to sabotage Alan's evening with the uncouth Jill. Alan and Jill go to his room. Alan attempts to have sex with Jill while providing a running commentary and attempts a discussion of the pedestrianisation of the Norwich city centre to delay ejaculating. Jill's attempt at eroticism by putting chocolate mousse makes him angry so he ends his liaison with her. At the radio station that night, he announces on-air that he has sacked her.[3]
3"Watership Alan"Dominic Brigstocke [6]Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci[6]17 November 1997 (1997-11-17)

After making various unsympathetic comments about farming on his radio show, Alan becomes an object of hatred for local farmers. But he does not have time to worry about this as he is more concerned with shooting an advertisement for a small-boating holiday company. In the hotel's bar, during an initial interview with the video executives (Peter Baynham and Simon Pegg), Alan panics and invents the ladyboy drink combination, the effects of which result in him phoning Carol, where he tries to insult her partner's car.

On his radio show, Alan interviews the leader of the local Farmers' Union (Chris Morris), but instead of apologising, enrages local farmers even further by making increasingly insane comments about farmers. On the day of the video-shoot, Alan attempts to blend in with the hard-drinking crew and again displays his chronic lack of basic social skills. During the shoot, riddled with examples of Alan's pathetic ineptitude, he is crushed by a dead cow thrown from a bridge by the disgruntled local farmers.

Alan returns from hospital with a neck brace and broken fingers, and is forced to humiliate himself by phoning reception and asking Susan to 'make pornography come on my television', after previously asking for such channels to be disconnected after the staff found out that he had watched Bangkok Chickboys. He discovers his request to be a pointless waste of time, due to his hand injury.[5]
4"Basic Alan"Dominic Brigstocke [8]Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci[8]24 November 1997 (1997-11-24)
There are major refurbishments taking place at the hotel, during which the hotel is closed, leaving Alan as the only guest. Throughout the episode, he is desperately bored and does various things to pass the time, including dismantling a trouser press, walking along a dual carriageway to a petrol station to buy several bottles of windscreen washer fluid, driving round the ring road three times, buying some tungsten-tipped screws he never intends to use and dressing up as a zombie in a poorly planned practical joke. His boredom culminates with an incompetent attempt to steal a traffic cone, with Michael and Lynn.[7]
5"To Kill a Mocking Alan"Dominic Brigstocke [10]Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci[10]1 December 1997 (1997-12-01)
Alan hosts "An Afternoon with Alan Partridge" at the hotel which is attended by his self-confessed "biggest fan", Jed Maxwell. He is also visited by Irish network executives (Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews) who are considering giving him a show on Irish television. Naturally, they are less than impressed by Alan (particularly regarding his ignorant take on the Troubles and his misunderstanding of the U2 song "Sunday Bloody Sunday"), though they do get along very well with Lynn. Through a series of mishaps, the three of them end up at Jed's house. Having no home of his own, Alan pretends he cohabits with Jed, with extremely awkward consequences. After Alan and the Irishmen discover that Jed's fandom is of a highly obsessive nature, with one of the rooms acting as shrine to the presenter, the two executives make their excuses and leave, leaving Alan alone. Alan becomes increasingly worried about his own safety and, following an altercation with Jed, he escapes and is seen running across nearby fields to flee the crazed and embittered fan.[9]
6"Towering Alan"Dominic Brigstocke [12]Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci[12]8 December 1997 (1997-12-08)

After a depressing afternoon hosting a small village fayre and judging the vegetable competition, Alan is delighted to discover that Tony has died and his successor, Chris Feather, had always supported and liked Alan. Attending Hayers' funeral (he knows that Chris will be there) he immediately snaps up the opportunity to finally win his sought-after second series, but not before Chris' sudden death threatens to throw his dream into tatters.

The series ends with a party in Alan's room as Alan and Lynn tidied up to the theme from The Adventures of Black Beauty, after all the guests have prematurely left. The series ends on an upbeat note, with Alan pleased with himself.[11]

Series 2 (2002)

No. Title Directed by Written by Original air date UK viewers
(million)
1"The Talented Mr Alan"Armando Iannucci[14]Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham [14]11 November 2002 (2002-11-11)TBA

While visiting Michael at the petrol station, Alan has a chance meeting with his old teacher Frank "Sweaty" (or "Cacky") Raphael (Andrew Burt, who also provided the voice-overs for the various Radio Norwich jingles in both series). Alan convinces Raphael to let him give a talk to the sixth formers at the school where Raphael is now headmaster. Whilst at the school, Alan bumps into an old schoolmate who is now a teacher (Ian Puleston-Davies). They try to reminisce over old times, but Alan still holds a grudge against this man, who once drew a penis on the back of his school blazer in chalk; which Alan was caned for. Later Alan begins his talk to the students which, of course, all goes wrong. Alan ends up insulting Raphael for caning him when he was younger and also insults his schoolmate for "getting the lab assistant pregnant, and never sees the kid." All of this results in Alan receiving a stern talking-to in the headmaster's office.

Towards the end of the episode, the reviled schoolmate comes into the petrol station; Alan, thinking he has come to fight, tries to threaten him with an apple turnover. The schoolmate apologises to Alan and hopes that they can be friends again, but as the schoolmate leaves the petrol station a customer tells him that he has got something on his back: Alan got Lynn to draw an anatomically dubious chalk 'penis' on his back.[13]
2"The Colour Of Alan"Armando Iannucci[14]Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham [14]18 November 2002 (2002-11-18)TBA

Michael comes to stay for a few days after his front door is stolen; Alan is asked to present a sales conference for "Dante's of Reading," a company that supplies coal-effect fires and fireplaces. Dante's Piet Morant (Steve Brody), a South African, visits Alan's partially built house. After his frequent pranks with the security staff at his country club backfire and the police are called, Alan is forced to bring Piet to his partially built house. Lynn and Michael improvise some makeshift furniture in the empty house: they balance a toilet door on a Black & Decker Workmate for a table and attach several torches to a bicycle wheel for lighting. This fails to impress Morant, who is even less impressed by Alan's attempt at a South African accent or his misunderstanding of Piets pronunciation of the word 'can't'.

Nevertheless, Alan is awarded the job, but tragedy ensues when Alan tries to climb over a country club's fence and impales his foot on a metal spike. Lynn tells him to stay in hospital but Alan is completely adamant about doing the speech for "Dante's of Reading." Unfortunately, his dry vomiting and foot pain turn his speech into a disaster.[15]
3"Bravealan"Armando Iannucci[17]Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham [17]25 November 2002 (2002-11-25)TBA

Alan makes a new friend at the BP garage, Dan (Stephen Mangan). They both like the same beer, use the same deodorant, and drive 'Lexii' ("the plural of Lexus"). Dan owns "Kitchen Planet" on the A416 (road) and arranges for Alan to present the Colman's Mustard Bravery Awards. Alan's attempts to impress Karen Colman are hugely unsuccessful; he even admits to her that he had mental health issues. She strikes up an instant rapport with Sonia, however, later inviting her back to her house without Alan. On hearing that the Colmans' family motto is "Too much mustard gets up your nose," Alan tries desperately to impress her by eating a big spoonful of mustard. However, an unimpressed Karen has put this down to Alan's previously declared "mental health", leaving him further humiliated.

Later, at Dan's home, Alan finds out that Dan and his wife enjoy a deviantly spicy lifestyle; to his great discomfort, they show him a tape of them having intercourse.[16]
4"Never Say Alan Again"Armando Iannucci[19]Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham [19]2 December 2002 (2002-12-02)TBA

Alan plans a Bond-athon (watching all the Bond films in sequential order) for the bank holiday weekend with Michael. Lynn reveals to Alan that she has a new friend, Gordon, an ex-policeman who threatens Alan for mistreating Lynn at times. The Bond weekend all goes pear-shaped when Lynn accidentally destroys his Bond movies after spilling Sunny Delight over them. Alan is about to give her the full force of his anger when Gordon stands up next to her: Alan panics, backs down and decides to take his anger out on his breakfast cereals instead. When he discovers that Michael has another friend, Tex (Peter Serafinowicz), he becomes jealous and falls out with Michael, un-inviting him to the Bond-athon. Alan targets John the builder for his new friend/protector-from-Gordon. After patching things up with Michael, Alan discovers that Tex has taped over the one undamaged Bond film with an episode of "America's Strongest Man."

Because of this, he declares himself "Norfolk's Maddest Man" and decides to give the group a physical run-through of the entire opening sequence of The Spy Who Loved Me.[18]
5"I Know What Alan Did Last Summer"Armando Iannucci[21]Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham [21]9 December 2002 (2002-12-09)TBA

The Inland Revenue are due to call and carry out a random investigation on Alan's business affairs, causing him to worry. The Inland Revenue people arrive earlier than the set time, catching Alan dancing around (playing air bass) in his caravan to Gary Numan's "Music for Chameleons". During the investigation, Alan offers the two "inspectresses" a beer (which they decline) and insists that they can't have any "Mini Babybels" as they are for the car when he's driving to Harrogate. Alan makes a fool out of himself several more times, including trying to walk like R2-D2, raising his legs, and "accidentally on purpose" breaking wind (claiming it was "mostly deliberate") right next to the Inland Revenue people. This leads to him having a minor argument with Sonia, which is all seen by the tax people. In order to make things up to her, he takes her to Bono's house (really Blickling Hall), after falsely claiming to be a personal friend of his. Lynn also gets a friend of hers from the Baptist Church to pretend to be Bono, even giving him her mother's cataract glasses to wear in hope that Sonia would be convinced he is Bono.

Alan is rumbled by Sonia and by way of apology for the deception and for stabbing a giant teddy bear beefeater that Sonia bought him (with a receipt spike; on entering the static caravan, he mistook the bear for a burglar), he grudgingly consents to take her to London.[20]
6"Alan Wide Shut"Armando Iannucci[23]Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham [23]16 December 2002 (2002-12-16)TBA

The building work on Alan's house is finally complete and Sonia is angling to cohabit. Alan however, has other ideas and tries to "come to some arrangement" with her. He is interviewed on a radio show called Prayer Wave, where his insensitive comments result in one of the guests (Julia Davis) walking out. After this, he attends Lynn's baptism at her church where he simulates blowing his head off with a shotgun and assaults one of the guests (Rob Brydon) who questions Alan's anecdote-writing ability.

Meanwhile, with "The Windmills of Your Mind" playing on the soundtrack, the remaining 14,000 unsold copies of Alan's book, "Bouncing Back," are pulped. Alan takes some away with him in a plastic bag as mementoes.[22]

References

  1. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 1.1". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  2. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  3. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 1.2". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  4. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  5. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 1.3". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  6. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  7. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 1.4". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  8. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  9. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 1.5". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  10. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  11. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 1.6". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  12. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  13. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 2.1". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  14. ^ a b c d "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  15. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 2.2". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  16. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 2.3". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  17. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  18. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 2.4". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  19. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  20. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 2.5". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  21. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  22. ^ "I'm Alan Partridge - Episode 2.6". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  23. ^ a b "BBC Two - I'm Alan Partridge". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
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