Alan Partridge: Every TV Show And Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

The British sitcom-to-movie path is paved with misjudged failures that do nothing but take the regular cast on holiday. Even the commercially successful Inbetweeners movie (arguably the film whose success finally got a long-mooted Partridge flick off the ground) settles for this narrative without really capturing the well-observed relatable cringe of its TV forebear (and the less said about David Brent: Life On The Road the better).

So it's really remarkable that the Partridge movie is as good as it is. Yes, some concessions are made to the bigger scale and broader appeal of a movie compared to a TV show about a petty man's small dreams and minor failures. There's a genuine threat to fired DJ Pat Farrell's gun-toting hostage taking and Alan gets to have the closest thing he could get to a romantic movie happy ending.

Other than that, though, it keeps things deliberately small. The action never leaves Norfolk, is mostly based around an employment dispute caused by redundancies after a large conglomerate buy-out of a local digital radio station, and leads to an anti-climactic climax on Cromer Pier. It maintains a strong balance between Partridge just about remaining a hero in his own mind and a ridiculous figure to the audience.

Crucially, the character remains the same. There's still reams of endlessly quotable dialogue full of small-minded and excessively specific observations, and oddly plausible local radio segments ("which is the worst monger: fish, iron, rumour, or war?").