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Episode three, Watership Alan, which guest-stars
Spaced's Simon Pegg
and this programme's co-writer Peter Baynham, finds him doing a
promotional video for a boating company and drinking "ladyboys", definitely
not related to the late-night film he watched, "Bangkok Chick-Boys"
and at the end of the episode, there's the classic cry of asking Susan to
put his porn back on for him. Also, in the episode, he annoys farmers and
interviews a representative from the Norfolk Farmers' Union played by
Christopher Morris (Brass Eye).
Basic Alan is set on a very boring Saturday afternoon. There's no-one
about and the hotel is closed for repairs, although the only essential one
is to Alan's Corby trouser press after he dismantles it. To while away the time
he pays a visit to the petrol station to buy twelve bottle of windscreen washer
fluid and phones Curry's to ask about buying "two supplementary auxilliary speakers,
apropos achieving surround sound", asking out the male assistants in each
shop for a drink and getting a knock-back. Not to mention there's the moments
where he pretends to shoot Michael and then himself, as well as attempting to
interrupt Ben and Sophie's 15-minute break.
In To Kill a Mocking Alan, he hosts "An Afternoon with Alan Partridge"
but guest Sue Cook cancels at the last minute and Alan embarrasses
himself in front of two representatives from Irish station RTE TV, first by
stressing that U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" really encapsulates the frustrations
of a Sunday, missing the song's original intent and later by inadvertently
taking them to the house of his Number One fan, Jed Maxwell.
("No way, you big spastic! You're a mentalist!")
Finally, in Towering Alan, he gets his big shot at stardom. Tony Hayers
is dead, giving Alan a chance to really make a fool of himself at the wake
and then the new guy in charge believes in him and wants to give Alan the
contract he's always wanted, just as soon as he's signed it. ("Jurassic Park!")
If I had only one complaint it's that I wish they'd left out the canned
laughter. It should have optional soundtracks for this, although I presume that
the only available one is the one used here and shown endlessly on UK Gold and
Play UK.
My final question here will be: Just what is in Alan's bedroom draw? It's as
big a mystery as the glowing suitcase in Pulp Fiction.
Alan with his new best friend.
For a programme that's just four years old everything should look perfect
and it does, with zero artifacts, even though it's largely shot with a hand-held
camera that can jitter about in some scenes. Filmed in 4:3 fullscreen as shown
the same way, the look of desperation comes across Alan's face perfectly.
The extras begin with Add On Alan, 20 minutes of excellent unseen footage. Most are finished
clips that could easily be put back into the programme and I wish they were
because they retain the same quality of comedy and obviously were only cut
for timing reasons. There's also a few outtakes within.
The Partridge Family Tree provides character biogs on all the main
people and Alan's Ideas brings together four minutes of all the ideas
he ever had, all of which has been bizarrely squeezed vertically a little. Why?
The stereo soundtrack is purely functional, giving clear English dialogue,
but nothing else is necessary.
There are 36 chapters to the series, each episode having an equal six and
the menus feature some subtle animation and clips from the show, the theme
tune and plenty of soundclips. Subtitles are in English.
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Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
