15 Best British TV Shows Of The Decade
8. This Time With Alan Partidge
When you’ve created a bonafide comedy icon, one of the all time great characters, the temptation to keep returning for more is unsurprisingly great. This can go two ways. In one corner you’ve got David Brent, who has been beaten into irrelevance by the increasingly lazy Ricky Gervais. In the other, Alan Partridge. Steve Coogan has been smart enough to put his signature creation into new scenarios, with new writers, and This Time With Alan Partridge ranks among the best work they’ve done.
The format - a spoof of The One Show - is ideal for Alan. The light entertainment magazine programme is a medium built on feigning interest in pretty tedious people, of carrying on conversation no matter how small the talk gets, and this is right in Alan’s wheelhouse. Paired with Susannah Fielding (playing a composite of every woman who has to present TV shows next to oafish blokes), Alan is back on telly for the first time since he shot a man, and is desperate to make the best of his opportunity.
Naturally, things don’t go to plan. From an investigation into proper hand washing technique to a sting operation on celebrity gardener Monty Don, This Time With Alan Partridge expertly spoofed the fluff that makes up evening TV in the UK. The genius of Partridge is that he’s no bumbling fool - much of what he says is perfectly reasonable, he just can’t resist pushing the limits of social niceties.
A new Steve Coogan project tends to be something to celebrate, and it was fantastic to see him bring back his beloved character for something that actually turned out to be great. And if there’s a better laugh on UK TV than Partridge’s face CGI-ed onto a small boy for a section on corporal punishment, then it must have been a seriously good year for comedy.