before news of allegations against its star, Noel Clarke, broke, it annoyed me a little. Mainly because of chances wasted. We’ve had the thrills of the lengthy interview technique, evinced in
Criminal but most superbly in
Line of Duty; we’ve had the forensic anthropologists celebrated in
Silent Witness: even recently (in
Intruder), the lowly family liaison officer. Now was surely the time for those stout souls of 24-hour surveillance teams to be given their midnight in the sun.
And yet Clarke’s DC Martin Young made so many mistakes in his Manchester stakeout flat, directly opposite the target row of grand houses. He let his tripoded supercamera run out of power at a crucial moment, durr. He abandoned his post for a trip to hospital. He slept with the single mother in the stakeout flat. A colleague would later leave the police walkie-talkie crackling alone in a room with the chief suspect. Later still, Martin would actually manage to talk a crucial witness
By Alison Rowat Senior politics and features writer
Noel Clarke starred in the five-part thriller, Viewpoint ARE you ready for the Line of Duty finale? It has been six often confusing weeks, but here we are, the last sprint to the finish and … well, what? Can we expect to see the fourth man, “H”, unmasked? Will Ted’s ever expanding cast of biblical characters, now standing at “Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey,” grow even larger? And what, pray, is a “Glasgow city coroner”? The penultimate episode had the coroner howler, made by DI Steve Arnott, in what was a slow-burner of an instalment, setting up what is either going to be a doozy of a final or an infuriating opener for a seventh series.
Review
This Time with Alan Partridge, review: still an exquisite send up – but with a little too much Coogan
4/5
30 April 2021 • 10:00pm
Steve Coogan, Susannah Fielding and Simon Farnaby
Credit: BBC
The BBC schedules have been a bit of a comedy wasteland lately, so hooray for the return of
This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC One), in which our hero has put his Travel Tavern years firmly behind him and secured a permanent place as the main presenter of this terrible teatime show.
The writing, by brothers Neil and Rob Gibbons plus Coogan, exquisitely sends up the banality of programmes like The One Show. “Welcome to the show that covers the full spectrum of human life… from aqua-aerobics to abortion, from zebras to Zionism.” Susannah Fielding maintains that perma-smile as Alan’s long-suffering host, Jennie Gresham, and you feel that she could slot into any real-life magazine show without anyone realising she was a comedy performer.
Fri 30 Apr 2021 17.00 EDT
It is perhaps a slightly coarser, less exquisite agony than in his absolute prime but agony it truly remains. Welcome â if that is the word â 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 â brought again to awful, hilarious life by Coogan and his post-Armando Iannucci collaborators Neil and Rob Gibbons â 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 Fieldingâs Jennie Gresham essaying the Susanna Reid âsmile like itâs not an act of self-harmâ role). âCovering everything! From aqua-aerobics to abortion! From zebras to Zionism!â But a new produ
Steve Coogan as Tommy Saxondale
Credit: BBC
In Alan Partridge’s Noughties wilderness – the years between his failed bouncing back, seen in the 2002 series I’m Alan Partridge, and his more empathetic return, which began with 2010’s Mid Morning Matters and continues with the new series of This Time – another of Steve Coogan’s creations rode into town (well, Stevenage).
He arrived in a Boss 351 Mustang, rocking a pair of Wrangler ProRodeo jeans and Dunlop green flash pumps. All hail Tommy Saxondale, roadie to the guitar gods-turned-pest control operative and free-thinking wisdom-imparter.
Tommy was also the star of his own BBC Two sitcom, Saxondale, co-written by Coogan and Neil MacLennan, which ran for two series in 2006 and 2007. As with some of Coogan’s other characters – the Portuguese heartthrob Tony Ferrino; spoof horror anthology host Dr. Terrible; and the motley crew of characters from Coogan’s Run – Saxondale is perhaps overshadowed by the sheer comedi