'Alan Partridge' has good and bad gags, but the good ones are worth waiting for

'Alan Partridge' stars Steve Coogan as a hyper-obnoxious radio personality.

|
Nicola Dove/Magnolia Pictures/AP
'Alan Partridge' stars Steve Coogan (l.) and Colm Meaney (r.).

Steve Coogan’s self-created hyper-obnoxious radio personality, Alan Partridge, has been a British mainstay almost from the time he first appeared on radio and TV almost 20 years ago. Now he has his own feature film – titled, what else? “Alan Partridge” – and it’s a flurry of good gags and bad. The good ones are worth sitting around for.

Alan is now working as a DJ in sleepy, provincial Norwich. When a crazed fellow broadcaster (Colm Meaney) holds the station’s personnel hostage in retaliation for being sacked, the film loses its satiric edge. Coogan, to my regret, doesn’t do any celebrity impressions in this film. As he demonstrated in “The Trip,” he’s one of the best mimics in the business. Grade: B (Rated R for language, brief violence and nudity.)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Alan Partridge' has good and bad gags, but the good ones are worth waiting for
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2014/0404/Alan-Partridge-has-good-and-bad-gags-but-the-good-ones-are-worth-waiting-for
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe