Every Alan Partridge Project Ranked From Worst To Best
2. Mid Morning Matters
What started as a bit of sponsored content for Australian lager supremos Fosters turned into one of the finest and most underrated Partridge projects ever to air. Mid Morning Matters is delightfully low concept - it’s a webcast of Alan’s new radio gig at North Norfolk Digital - but Coogan, along with Iannucci and the newly added Gibbons brothers, mine it for all it’s worth.
Alan’s radio sections were a highlight of earlier shows, and we can enjoy his unique broadcast style in all its glory here - the tortured puns leading into song introductions, the banal chat topics, the petty point scoring.
MMM features one of the franchise’s great supporting casts, with Tim Key as Sidekick Simon, and a mixed group of colleagues, guests, and rivals. Alan’s interviews with the great and good of Norfolk make for some of the show’s finest moments, including a fox hunting advocate and a wine expert who plies Partridge with plonk.
It’s absolutely packed with gags, but there’s room for pathos, too. Alan is at his most vulnerable and even likeable here, and the simplicity of the set up belies some of the finest material the team has ever written.