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Alan Partridge Is Coming Back To Our Screens Next Month

Alan Partridge Is Coming Back To Our Screens Next Month

The six-part series will see a return to the BBC for the former disc jockey

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers

It's the news we have all been waiting for - Alan Partridge is coming back to a television screen near you.

No this is not a drill, the former star of North Norfolk Digital Radio and television presenter is launching a new series and it starts next month.

Jackanakanory.

Titled This Time with Alan Partridge, the six-part series will be a comedic take on The One Show, and will see the beleaguered former DJ tackle some of the hot topics of the day, including the #MeToo movement.

Sounds incredible, right?

Manchester-born comedian Steve Coogan - who created Alan back in the 90s - revealed the news to fellow stand-up Marc Maron on the latter's podcast.

He said: "What we do is we have him trying to jump on the bandwagon and say, you know, he says 'Hey! I've made mistakes, I've stood on the side of the sidewalk and slow hand-clapped while I watch a woman try to parallel park, you know, and I feel bad about that. And now if I saw a woman doing it now, I would shout instructions'."

Fans of the Coogan's cringeworthy character have been waiting for this moment since Partridge was last on our screens in 2016, with his look at a divided Britain in Scissored Isle.

Audiences last saw Partridge during his 2016 mockumentary, 'Scissored Isle'.
PA

And it marks almost 20 years since he last appeared on the Beeb, when he presented another hilarious mock-chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge - which followed his doomed attempt to bag a second series after killing a guest live on air.

During his conversation with Maron, Coogan talked about the new show and where the ageing Partridge is at this stage in his life.

He said: "We've just finished a new TV series which starts next February.

"It's another Alan Partridge series but this one is like a magazine type show. So it's like a sort of a morning thing with a female and male co-presenter.

"I'm really excited about the show, it's a thing where Alan tackles serious topics like the whole Me Too - there's a whole episode about that. That's such a difficult topic for anyone to talk about for anyone to say anything about, but if you're doing a character it weirdly gives you this licence to - you can get things wrong in a big way and it's fine because it's him doing it.

The new six-part show will be the first time he's been on the BBC since the 90s.
PA

"You're not sanctioning or agreeing with what he's saying, you're saying 'this guy gets things wrong' so you have licence to do it. And this is the crucial thing, because you've got a comic character he can say stuff that you go 'that is so off message' but sometimes he can say stuff that's true that I can't say. So the fool can point something out that everyone secretly knows to be true."

Coogan added: "You're not saying that he's right and you're not saying that he's wrong. It allows you to sprinkle a little humanity on arguments that are atrocious."

'This Time' promises to look at the hot topics of the day, including the #MeToo movement.
PA

In the candid discussion, Coogan said his alter ego has come a long way since it first saw life more than 25 years ago, when he was 'too predictable'.

Since then audiences have watched on as he's struggled to cope with being both famous and unknown, and though he's usually in the wrong, he's someone trying to do the right thing.

He said: "I don't like to use comedy to attack people who don't have any power. Some people do that and I don't like it.

"Are you laughing at a prejudice or is the prejudice why you're laughing? Intuitively that's what I want to do."

The character's creator added: "He's sometimes ignorant and prejudiced but he tries to do the right thing. Early on we made him too predictably conservative...a bit like shooting fish in a barrel - a caricature. Whereas now we do him as someone who realises that he's got to get 'on message'. He's struggling to do the thing he's supposed to."

Jurassic Park!

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: UK News, TV and Film, Interesting, UK Entertainment