Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge

Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge character just wouldn't lie down. After filling the sport slot in Christopher Morris's brilliant TV news show spoof "The Day Today", Coogan and his co-writers devised this devilishly funny and close-to-the-bone mickey-take of the ever-popular celebrity chat programme, with all the accoutrements of real-life prototypes by the likes of real-life stereotypical hosts (we know who they are) complete with guest house-band, fake starry guests and all their other familiar trappings (mix and match guests, the shared couch, the shallow content).

Coogan in particular rips into the title character with relish, a gormless, ignorant, sexist, bigoted, power-crazy narcissist who says what he thinks before he even thinks it. To play his guests, stock supporting actors like Rebecca Front, David Schneider and Patrick Marber change clothes and personalities from show to show, but somehow always end up as the unwilling victims of Partridge's prejudices.

All of the shows in the series are big on laughs, my favourite characters being the dead-on-his-feet ventriloquist act Cheeky Monkey, the cringe-worthy "Knowing Another Alan Partridge" section involving a recently deceased namesake and of course his quite literally go-out-with-a-bang climax.

Once you settle down to watch it, so convincingly played are the characters that you actually do end up thinking it could somehow be for real on an obscure satellite channel, although after the final bombshell which ends each episode, you snap out if it but realise how close to the truth it actually was.

For Coogan the character has never gone away, spawning the brilliant "I'm Alan Partridge" sequel and most recently a movie incarnation "Alan Partridge Alpha Papa", which I've not yet seen but it will be hard-pressed to beat the plentiful laughs on show here.

This is one of my favourite comedies, I so wish they had made more of this series. "I'm Alan Partridge" was good, but the 2nd series of that started going downhill a bit, like he was trying too hard.

But this is ultimate Partridge, the jokes and laughs come thick and fast, he's so bad at doing his job and insults the guests all the time, but your always on his side, especially in the French one, which happens to be one of my favourites. "What if your arm bursts?" I recommend this to any comedy fan, it's just so funny. Hopefully one day he'll get his 2nd series of his chat show.

But don't let me deter you from his two "I'm Alan Partridge" series though, the first series of that is also fantastic!

When I first watched this show, I wasn't sure. My friend told me how funny it was but at first it seemed a bit normal. However, I gave it a chance and watched some more. It was too late, I was hooked.

This show is brilliantly written and the jokes are so different to other comedies it feels refreshingly different. It does require a different view point for it's comedy but when looking from that perspective, this show stands tall.

The character himself, Alan Partridge, is a wonderful creation and Steve Coogan has cemented his name in comedy history. I love everything about this character and can quite easily watch this show over and over again.

The funniest thing is, you seem to be laughing at Alans crashing career which is sick but you just don't care.

The best part of this show was the ABBA medley. Truly brilliant.

This is comedy at it's very best. The supporting characters are truly wonderful and as for Alan Partridge himself, fantastic and brilliant.

AHA.....

Steve Coogan is Alan Patridge (A-HA) in this parody of talk shows using England's famous perchant for dry humor. Poor Alan doesn't have much luck with any of his guests in the 6 episode series, and his handling of said guest is what makes this series worthwhile and I frequently found myself laughing at the deftly scripted show. I can't believe how great British comedies can truly be and most of the 'comedies' in my native land of, America can be so truly dreadful. The differences truly seem like night and day. If this had an American counterpart it would likely be "the Larry Sanders Show", but whereas that deals with the behind the scenes of a talk show as much, if not more so than in front of the camera, this one just deals with the talk show proper and I believe I like both the aforementioned shows equally.

My Grade: A-

DVD Extras: Disc 1) Commentaries on all the episodes (which are frequently as funny as the shows themselves) ; Promos for BBC America, and "Little Britian"

Disc 2) the 46 minute "Knowing me, Knowing Yule" special (with optional commentary); 16 minutes of the Test shoot with optional commentary; 5 minute, 16 seconds of Alan rambling on; 3 skits (totalling 6 minutes and 15 seconds) of Alan's appearance on BBC's "Comic Relief 1995"; 9 commercials for the TV show; photo gallery; Cast & crew Bios; and Trailer for "Men Behaving Badly" & "Manchild"

Satire, satire, satire...A very funny send up of the dreaded ubiquitous chat show. Actor Steve Coogan plays show business blight, Alan Partridge, a thoroughly unlikeable character who hosts an odd assortment of meaningless guests on his ridiculous chat show that is ridiculously titled, Knowing Me, Knowing You. The title of course is taken from the ABBA song of the same name, and Partridge himself mysteriously uses the A-Ha refrain from the song as his personal catch phrase. Completely idiotic but completely funny and eerily cogent. Alan Partridge the man likewise is as completely idiotic as he is pompous, condescending, moronic, cruel, vindictive and completely out of touch with reality. He also just happens to be 24 karat comic gold. In Alan Partridge, Coogan has created the perfect embodiment of an entertainment show-biz phony, cardboard jackass. An all too familiar character that sadly we as viewers now accept as normal. His pathetic C minus guest list parades one low-level pseudo-personality whacko after another. Said guests are all so excellently portrayed, that not being English, I initially was unable to tell if the people were actual Britsh celebs or not. Though Coogan is definitely top banana, the show in actuality is more troupe sketch format a la Monty Python then a solo tour de force. We see the same 4 or 5 actors switch disguises to portray each and every guest, with only a few exceptions sprinkled in now and again. They all deserve equal credit for the show's success. Knowing Me, Knowing You is the Sammy Maudlin bit from SCTV taken on as an entire show. Personally, I never got enough of Sammy Maudlin.

In terms of this type of fare, there is no American counterpart. Forget that satire itself has very little in the way of broadcast outlets, American entertainment simply does not or will not go after its own a la the Brits. That might well be because producers think American wont laugh at show business parody, but somehow cynicism makes me seriously doubt that. Even the terrific Larry Sanders show, ostensibly a similar type satire of the chat show genre, though hilarious, never once made Larry Sanders himself look professionally incompetent. To be fair, Knowing Me, Knowing You, is a fictional chat show of the type we don't really have in America, as its a hybrid of a Letterman format with a Regis daytime format. They may not have them in England either. Evening chat shows are likely in America to be very stiff, formal and almost nerve wracking as the hosts do their very best to keep celebrities ill at ease, in further glorification of the said host. I wont argue with success. So though the satire might be hard to relate to, the comedy makes that fact immaterial. I will say that if you have an aversion to British comedy in general, you will not change your opinion after watching this show. Yet the converse is definitely true. British comedy fans, this is what you live for!