Steve Coogan has revealed he keeps a framed letter of complaint that was written about his alter-ego Alan Partridge in his downstairs loo.
The 59-year-old first took on the persona of the hubristic Norwich broadcaster in the BBC Radio 4 comedy series On The Hour in 1991, with listeners occasionally mistaking him for a sincere presenter.
Coogan said Radio 4 listeners sent furious complaints addressed to the BBC’s then-director general, Michael Checkland, after he launched the spoof Partridge chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You in 1992.
“Some retired colonel in Tunbridge Wells [was] saying, ‘Radio 4 was my first love. I was appalled to hear this man was given his own radio show. Why was this allowed to happen,’” he said.
The letter referenced a Knowing Me, Knowing You sketch in which Coogan, as Partridge, asked a young boy whether he had any pubic hair. “No, because I’m nine,” the boy replied, to which Partridge said: “Well, I’m 38 and I’ve got plenty.”
The listener’s complaint questioned why Partridge had been “allowed to ask such a question” to the “gifted” boy interviewed, with the colonel adding he’d sent copies of the letter to BBC’s senior staff.
Knowing Me, Knowing You was cancelled in 1995 after a disastrous Christmas special where Partridge shot a spoof guest dead on air and then whacked the BBC’s commissioning editor in the face with a turkey.
He then worked a graveyard shift on Norwich radio while desperately pitching new TV ideas, as documented by Coogan in the 1997 sitcom I’m Alan Partridge.
Following a second I’m Alan Partridge series in 2002, the character then went on hiatus before returning with the YouTube series Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge in 2010. The feature film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa followed in 2013.
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Partridge made his return to the BBC with the magazine show This Time with Alan Partridge in 2019. He was removed from the programme after dubbing his audience “idiots” on air and could subsequently only book work in the Middle East.
The forthcoming Partridge series will see the presenter return to his home county of Norfolk – after years working in Saudi Arabia – to film a documentary about mental health.
Rob and Neil Gibbons, who wrote the six-part series, said mental health seemed like a plausible “hot” topic for Partridge to try to use to relaunch his career after his BBC firing.
They said that the presenter would have thought to himself: “If I can convince people to let me on the telly and talk about my vulnerabilities, then [that] could be a nice little earner. Get me on the mental health gravy train.”
How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) airs on BBC One on Friday 3 October at 9.30pm.
