Steve Coogan's genius comic creation - long-suffering delusional broadcaster Alan Partridge - gets the movie treatment. Partridge's career decline has taken him to small regional radio station North Norfolk Digital, where he hosts a mid-morning show of soft rock and talkback. When a fellow DJ turns up to work with a shotgun after being made redundant by new owners, Partridge finds himself the main go-between in the ensuing hostage crisis. The drama reeks of an opportunity for Alan to ingratiate himself with new managers, and perhaps even spark a national comeback...
Partridge began life on BBC Radio 4's On The Hour comedy show, invented as a spoof of British sports commentators. His career blossomed with his own BBC TV chatshow - Knowing Me, Knowing You (1994). After a tragic end to that show that involved an on-screen death, Alan resurfaced in I'm Alan Partridge (1997) - a series chronicling his rapidly failing career. More recently, he has reared his obnoxious head with the online show Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge (2010) and an autobiography titled I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan (2011).
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If you don’t think there’s a risk in promoting comedic characters from the television to the cinema screen, then here are three (I think) words to change your mind: Ali G Indahouse. Thankfully Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (directed by Father Ted’s Declan Lowney) neither has a lead character who has outstayed his welcome, nor is forced to spread itself too thin in order to appeal to a broad cinema audience.
Full review
Has plenty to recommend it, thanks to a string of memorable one-liners and Coogan's unmatched knack for skin-crawling physical comedy. But this is a long way from the back-of-the-net strike it should have been.
Full review
You'd expect an Alan Partridge movie to be funny. You wouldn't expect it to be a coup de cinema. And yet, in its own superficially low-brow, cheapo way, Alpha Papa is exactly that.
Full review
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is available to stream in New Zealand now on Apple TV.
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