Steve Coogan and the team return in the perfect parody show ‘covering everything! From aqua-aerobics to abortion! From zebras to Zionism!’
It is perhaps a slightly coarser, less exquisite agony than in his absolute prime but agony it truly remains. Welcome – if that is the word – to the return of Steve Coogan in the new series of This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC One). Such is the ongoing mastery of his creation – brought again to awful, hilarious life by Coogan and his post-Armando Iannucci collaborators Neil and Rob Gibbons – that I flinch from the pain even as I remember the laughs.
Partridge has survived as co-host of the show, a perfect parody of current affairs programmes such as The One Show and Good Morning Britain (with Alan a less secure version of Piers Morgan, their lunging need to be noticed springing from difference founts, and Susannah Fielding’s Jennie Gresham essaying the Susanna Reid ‘smile like it’s not an act of self-harm’ role). “Covering everything! From aqua-aerobics to abortion! From zebras to Zionism!” But a new producer has come in and, to Alan’s alarm, has already tweaked the theme tune. It’s enough to set him spiralling into the personal and professional paranoia that will dog him until the day God at last takes pity and reaches out a hand to still the high-pitched ringing of his soul.
