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| Steve Coogan: older, wiser, but as for his alter ego… | Steve Coogan: older, wiser, but as for his alter ego… |
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| When Armando Iannucci finished work on the second series of I'm Alan Partridge in 2002, he told Observer readers that Steve Coogan's best-loved character had reached the end of the road. "I got a sense by the end of filming," he said, "that this was probably enough." By then, Coogan had developed a love/hate relationship with his Radio Norwich-presenting alter ego. The comedian wanted credibility and Hollywood stardom, but what he got was people shouting "a-ha!" at him in the street. A decade after Partridge's debut on the Radio 4 show On the Hour, it seemed like a good time to put Alan's sports casual suits into mothballs. | When Armando Iannucci finished work on the second series of I'm Alan Partridge in 2002, he told Observer readers that Steve Coogan's best-loved character had reached the end of the road. "I got a sense by the end of filming," he said, "that this was probably enough." By then, Coogan had developed a love/hate relationship with his Radio Norwich-presenting alter ego. The comedian wanted credibility and Hollywood stardom, but what he got was people shouting "a-ha!" at him in the street. A decade after Partridge's debut on the Radio 4 show On the Hour, it seemed like a good time to put Alan's sports casual suits into mothballs. |
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| Eleven years on and Radio Norwich's finest is on the verge of movie stardom. The character's big-screen debut Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa opens this week on the back of a clutch of enthusiastic reviews. So has Coogan made peace with the character who made his name? And if so, is that a triumph or an admission of defeat? Certainly, in recent years, he's become more accepting of his identification with the foot-in-mouth DJ whose face he shares. "I'm forever thinking of ideas for him," says Coogan, now 47. "And why kill the golden goose?" | Eleven years on and Radio Norwich's finest is on the verge of movie stardom. The character's big-screen debut Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa opens this week on the back of a clutch of enthusiastic reviews. So has Coogan made peace with the character who made his name? And if so, is that a triumph or an admission of defeat? Certainly, in recent years, he's become more accepting of his identification with the foot-in-mouth DJ whose face he shares. "I'm forever thinking of ideas for him," says Coogan, now 47. "And why kill the golden goose?" |
| It would be a cute touch if Partridge's latest golden egg secured for Coogan the cinematic hit for which he initially left the character behind. "In Britain, because of Partridge, I can't be a romantic lead," he once complained. And so, for the last decade, he has spent as much time in LA as at his home in Hove, where he lives close to his 16-year-old daughter, Clare. "I'll pursue [Hollywood]," he said in 2005, "until I make so many mistakes that I have to come home again." | It would be a cute touch if Partridge's latest golden egg secured for Coogan the cinematic hit for which he initially left the character behind. "In Britain, because of Partridge, I can't be a romantic lead," he once complained. And so, for the last decade, he has spent as much time in LA as at his home in Hove, where he lives close to his 16-year-old daughter, Clare. "I'll pursue [Hollywood]," he said in 2005, "until I make so many mistakes that I have to come home again." |
| In fact, he's made a respectable fist of Hollywood – small parts in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder and A Night at the Museum, acclaimed indie work (Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes), and a high-profile misfire with Around the World in 80 Days. Then there was the guest-star turn as Larry David's shrink in Curb Your Enthusiasm. | In fact, he's made a respectable fist of Hollywood – small parts in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder and A Night at the Museum, acclaimed indie work (Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes), and a high-profile misfire with Around the World in 80 Days. Then there was the guest-star turn as Larry David's shrink in Curb Your Enthusiasm. |
| In the field of character comedy and sitcom, he scores successes for fun. His company, Baby Cow, produced the huge hit Gavin & Stacey, among others. His own show Saxondale, a BBC2 comedy about a roadie now working in pest control, found its niche audience and ran for two series. The Trip, in which Coogan and Rob Brydon play "themselves" on a restaurant tour of the north of England, was directed by Michael Winterbottom to build on the self-satirising double-act the pair forged on his film A Cock and Bull Story. And then there was Mid Morning Matters, the new vehicle for Partridge, which launched in 2010 and became the first online-only show to be nominated for a South Bank award. Now, with Alpha Papa, Partridge looms larger in his creator's life than ever. | In the field of character comedy and sitcom, he scores successes for fun. His company, Baby Cow, produced the huge hit Gavin & Stacey, among others. His own show Saxondale, a BBC2 comedy about a roadie now working in pest control, found its niche audience and ran for two series. The Trip, in which Coogan and Rob Brydon play "themselves" on a restaurant tour of the north of England, was directed by Michael Winterbottom to build on the self-satirising double-act the pair forged on his film A Cock and Bull Story. And then there was Mid Morning Matters, the new vehicle for Partridge, which launched in 2010 and became the first online-only show to be nominated for a South Bank award. Now, with Alpha Papa, Partridge looms larger in his creator's life than ever. |
| Coogan was born in 1965 in Middleton, Manchester. His father worked as an engineer for IBM, his mother "raised us kids" Coogan has said – seven of them, not including foster children. (The family was Catholic and socialist.) He has described his upbringing in classic terms, as a boy from a big family who had to be mouthy and funny to make himself heard. His elder sister Clare has another take. "In our family, he was the least confident," she has said. "He was very aware of being humiliated. If we'd been puppies, he would have been the runt of the litter." | Coogan was born in 1965 in Middleton, Manchester. His father worked as an engineer for IBM, his mother "raised us kids" Coogan has said – seven of them, not including foster children. (The family was Catholic and socialist.) He has described his upbringing in classic terms, as a boy from a big family who had to be mouthy and funny to make himself heard. His elder sister Clare has another take. "In our family, he was the least confident," she has said. "He was very aware of being humiliated. If we'd been puppies, he would have been the runt of the litter." |
| It was a feeling he had to get used to. In the 1980s, Coogan applied to five London drama schools and was rejected by all of them. (He ended up at Manchester Polytechnic.) He has remained, to some extent, the provincial outsider. His On the Hour colleagues Chris Morris, Patrick Marber and Iannucci were all middle-class, university-educated writers. Coogan was a performer, instinctive, not intellectual, conscious of his different background and tastes. | It was a feeling he had to get used to. In the 1980s, Coogan applied to five London drama schools and was rejected by all of them. (He ended up at Manchester Polytechnic.) He has remained, to some extent, the provincial outsider. His On the Hour colleagues Chris Morris, Patrick Marber and Iannucci were all middle-class, university-educated writers. Coogan was a performer, instinctive, not intellectual, conscious of his different background and tastes. |
| From the start, then, Coogan was a man with something to prove. By 1990, he was well enough established, doing impressions for the ITV show Spitting Image, and on the Edinburgh fringe, where he was supported that year by the then little-known Frank Skinner. But the following year, he was piqued to see Skinner, a straight standup, win the prestigious Perrier award. It was a wake-up call. Impersonations lacked kudos. "I was very aware that the more established people regarded me as lightweight," he has said. "And I was absolutely determined to redress it." | From the start, then, Coogan was a man with something to prove. By 1990, he was well enough established, doing impressions for the ITV show Spitting Image, and on the Edinburgh fringe, where he was supported that year by the then little-known Frank Skinner. But the following year, he was piqued to see Skinner, a straight standup, win the prestigious Perrier award. It was a wake-up call. Impersonations lacked kudos. "I was very aware that the more established people regarded me as lightweight," he has said. "And I was absolutely determined to redress it." |
| The next year, with Marber directing, Coogan took a new show to the fringe, which featured not impressions, but comic characters, including the mustachioed Manc lager lout Paul Calf. The show bagged Coogan comedy's most prestigious prize and with it his On the Hour berth. Within a year, Alan Partridge was born – a sports commentator who knew nothing about sport, but everything about filling the airwaves with inanity. When On the Hour became The Day Today, Partridge flitted to the small screen. With his 1994 chat-show Knowing Me Knowing You, the character broadened into the awkward, thoughtless, chronically self-unaware broadcaster from hell we know today. | The next year, with Marber directing, Coogan took a new show to the fringe, which featured not impressions, but comic characters, including the mustachioed Manc lager lout Paul Calf. The show bagged Coogan comedy's most prestigious prize and with it his On the Hour berth. Within a year, Alan Partridge was born – a sports commentator who knew nothing about sport, but everything about filling the airwaves with inanity. When On the Hour became The Day Today, Partridge flitted to the small screen. With his 1994 chat-show Knowing Me Knowing You, the character broadened into the awkward, thoughtless, chronically self-unaware broadcaster from hell we know today. |
| The standard line about Coogan is that he's attracted to extremes and has an addictive personality. In this period, he worked slavishly at his job and played hard after hours. Thus began a tempestuous relationship with the British press, which recently led him to testify to the Leveson inquiry and take a prominent role in the campaign for press regulation. (In one outburst, Coogan branded Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre "Partridgesque", a quality he defined as "sanctimonious, pompous moralising and prurient, voyeuristic, judgmental obsession", which paints an interesting picture of the comic's feelings for his alter ego.) | The standard line about Coogan is that he's attracted to extremes and has an addictive personality. In this period, he worked slavishly at his job and played hard after hours. Thus began a tempestuous relationship with the British press, which recently led him to testify to the Leveson inquiry and take a prominent role in the campaign for press regulation. (In one outburst, Coogan branded Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre "Partridgesque", a quality he defined as "sanctimonious, pompous moralising and prurient, voyeuristic, judgmental obsession", which paints an interesting picture of the comic's feelings for his alter ego.) |
| Coogan has repeatedly complained that articles recycle the same old tabloid half-truths about his supposed affairs, lurid sex sessions on beds covered in bank notes and his "major substance habit" (according to his one-time lover Courtney Love). "People regurgitate the same old cliches," Coogan complains. But the tag "playboy lifestyle" still dogs his every appearance in the red-tops. His current relationship with 23-year-old lingerie model Elle Basey, whom he met while guest-editing Loaded magazine, can't have helped. | Coogan has repeatedly complained that articles recycle the same old tabloid half-truths about his supposed affairs, lurid sex sessions on beds covered in bank notes and his "major substance habit" (according to his one-time lover Courtney Love). "People regurgitate the same old cliches," Coogan complains. But the tag "playboy lifestyle" still dogs his every appearance in the red-tops. His current relationship with 23-year-old lingerie model Elle Basey, whom he met while guest-editing Loaded magazine, can't have helped. |
| That "tabloid love rat" reputation has perhaps sometimes come between Coogan and credibility as a serious artist. But playing Partridge has given Coogan an angle on pomposity and an outlet valve for it. He'd been co-opting the worst aspects of himself into Alan for years. "I've seen myself in my personal life behaving like an idiot," he told the New Yorker, "and I've thought, 'This will be quite useful'." | That "tabloid love rat" reputation has perhaps sometimes come between Coogan and credibility as a serious artist. But playing Partridge has given Coogan an angle on pomposity and an outlet valve for it. He'd been co-opting the worst aspects of himself into Alan for years. "I've seen myself in my personal life behaving like an idiot," he told the New Yorker, "and I've thought, 'This will be quite useful'." |
| More recently, Coogan has placed himself more boldly at the centre of his work – on his 2008 standup tour, say, where he memorably performed a song called Everybody's a Bit of a Cunt Sometimes. "It's about [denying] other people ownership of things that might make me vulnerable," he says. "It's a battle of wits. You can't pretend you don't have that baggage, so the best thing to do is just use it all." | More recently, Coogan has placed himself more boldly at the centre of his work – on his 2008 standup tour, say, where he memorably performed a song called Everybody's a Bit of a Cunt Sometimes. "It's about [denying] other people ownership of things that might make me vulnerable," he says. "It's a battle of wits. You can't pretend you don't have that baggage, so the best thing to do is just use it all." |
| The tactic has been successful. A 2011 Bafta for best male performance, when playing "Steve Coogan" in The Trip, marked a milestone on the actor's journey towards ease with himself. And his role in the Leveson campaign has proved to Coogan, and to the rest of us, that he's more than the class clown. It's easy to be cynical about his reasons for supporting press regulation, but his appearance on Newsnight, alongside Greg Dyke and former tabloid hack Paul McMullan, was serious minded and effective. Those who say the only role Coogan can play is Alan Partridge clearly weren't watching. | The tactic has been successful. A 2011 Bafta for best male performance, when playing "Steve Coogan" in The Trip, marked a milestone on the actor's journey towards ease with himself. And his role in the Leveson campaign has proved to Coogan, and to the rest of us, that he's more than the class clown. It's easy to be cynical about his reasons for supporting press regulation, but his appearance on Newsnight, alongside Greg Dyke and former tabloid hack Paul McMullan, was serious minded and effective. Those who say the only role Coogan can play is Alan Partridge clearly weren't watching. |
| In any event, that charge says more about us, and Partridge, than it does about Coogan. Like John Cleese before him, and Ricky Gervais later, he's created a character so vivid that we can't easily see past it when he plays someone else, no matter that he often does so very well. | In any event, that charge says more about us, and Partridge, than it does about Coogan. Like John Cleese before him, and Ricky Gervais later, he's created a character so vivid that we can't easily see past it when he plays someone else, no matter that he often does so very well. |
| A fairer response would be to thank Coogan for creating one indelible character. But then, having drawn the sting of years of bad coverage, and shown us his sober side, it looks as if he needs our appreciation less than he used to. And that he realises, as one reviewer wrote of his new film: "Partridge may be a joke Coogan is fated to repeat for the rest of his career. But at least Alpha Papa shows that it's still a funny one." | A fairer response would be to thank Coogan for creating one indelible character. But then, having drawn the sting of years of bad coverage, and shown us his sober side, it looks as if he needs our appreciation less than he used to. And that he realises, as one reviewer wrote of his new film: "Partridge may be a joke Coogan is fated to repeat for the rest of his career. But at least Alpha Papa shows that it's still a funny one." |
| Born Stephen John Coogan, 14 October 1965, one of seven children, to Anthony Coogan, an IBM engineer, and his wife, Kathleen, in Middleton, Greater Manchester. The family also took in foster children. Studied at the Manchester School of Theatre. | Born Stephen John Coogan, 14 October 1965, one of seven children, to Anthony Coogan, an IBM engineer, and his wife, Kathleen, in Middleton, Greater Manchester. The family also took in foster children. Studied at the Manchester School of Theatre. |
| Best of times The various outings for the character Alan Partridge, including I'm Alan Partridge, which won the 1998 best comedy Bafta, and the new film. Very successful production company, Baby Cow, whose credits include some of the finest British TV of the past decade. His role in the phone-hacking affair and Leveson inquiry as an articulate spokesman against what he saw as press intrusion. | Best of times The various outings for the character Alan Partridge, including I'm Alan Partridge, which won the 1998 best comedy Bafta, and the new film. Very successful production company, Baby Cow, whose credits include some of the finest British TV of the past decade. His role in the phone-hacking affair and Leveson inquiry as an articulate spokesman against what he saw as press intrusion. |
| Worst of times Professionally, there haven't been many setbacks. He has, however, endured various aspects of his private life featuring in the press. | Worst of times Professionally, there haven't been many setbacks. He has, however, endured various aspects of his private life featuring in the press. |
| He says "We're all a bit of a dick. It's the human condition. Nothing to be afraid of." | He says "We're all a bit of a dick. It's the human condition. Nothing to be afraid of." |
| "People who want to attack me say I am becoming more like Partridge but they are only half right: he is becoming more like me." | "People who want to attack me say I am becoming more like Partridge but they are only half right: he is becoming more like me." |
| They say 'It was like being at home. I thought it would be a bit weird but it wasn't. It was good." Armando Iannucci on the return of the Partridge character. | They say 'It was like being at home. I thought it would be a bit weird but it wasn't. It was good." Armando Iannucci on the return of the Partridge character. |
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