Viewing Thread:
"The wonder of Partridge"

For anyone who hasn't seen any Alan Partirdge material, you gotta check it out. Truly Steve Coogan is a comical genius. I would like to start a new topic devoted to the king of chat.

I'll start with my favourite moment:

Scene - Alan is at Tandy's at an exclusive 'after-hours' Christmas shop. He checks out a CD player and pushes the open button.

"That's a nice action."

He does it again.

"That IS a nice action"

He does it once more. He's decided.

"Yep, that's a quality action. But I've got one."

It might not sound that funny actually but it is.

Sir, you are an absolute star. You've made me smile when I was really stressed out. Please post more of these as soon as you can.

"You can either book me now and cancel Cliff Thorburn or you can book him and if he leaves you're up slack alley. Kiss my face."

Again another classic scene is when Alan recieves yet another crank call...

SOPHIE: Oh, there was a call for you, a Mr. Nesshead rang.
ALAN: Right, never heard of him. Did he leave a first name?
SOPHIE: No. It was just a Mr. P. Nesshead.
ALAN: Sophie, that's a crank call. Read it back to yourself.
SOPHIE: Oh Yeah. I can see, I can see what he's done now. Shall I put on the list with all the others.
ALAN: If you would. Actually can I have a look a that list. I want to get to the bottom of this... Mr. G. String, Nick Kerrs, Y. Fronts, Mr. T. Osser. That doesn't even work! T. Osser. Mr. B. Odie, this is Bill Odie. It's not a crank call. Why have you put it down there?
SUSAN: Well, we thought it looked like, "body".
ALAN: What's rude about a body?
SOPHIE: T**s?

In the same episode he is talking to the two Irish TV people as the leave his "TV show but it isn't on TV" and Jed Maxwell is standing right behind him...

Alan: Erm, this is Jed. He’s my…driver.
Jed: How do you do. And business partner.
Alan: Yeah.
Paul: Hello.
Alan: And we live together. We’re not gay. I’ve nothing against them, it’s just, as I see it, God created Adam and Eve. He didn’t create Adam and Steve. I’m kind of a homosceptic.

Classics absolute classics.

Another one of my favourite scenes is when Alan is having lunch with Tony Hayers Head of the BBC and is showcasing some new ideas for television programmes...

Alan: ‘Shoestring’, ‘Taggart’, ‘Spender’, ‘Bergerac’, ‘Morse’. What does that say to you about regional detective series’?
Tony: There’s too many of them?
Alan: That’s one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is, ‘people like them, let’s make some more of them’. A detective series based in Norwich called ‘Swallow’. Swallow is a detective who tackles vandalism. Bit of a maverick, not afraid to break the law if he thinks it’s necessary. He’s not a criminal, but he will, perhaps, travel 80mph on the motorway if he, for example, he wants to get somewhere quickly…
Alan: Think about it. No-one had heard of Oxford before ‘Inspector Morse’. I mean, this will put Norwich on the map.
Tony: Why would I want to do that?
Alan: Yep, fair point. OK, right. ‘Alan Attack!’. Like the Cook Report, but with a more slapstick approach.
Tony: No.
Alan: ‘Arm Wrestling with Chas and Dave’.
Tony: I don’t think so.
Alan: Pity, because they were very keen on that one. Right, ah, now you’ll like this one. ‘Knowing M.E., Knowing You’. I, Alan Partridge, talk to M.E. sufferers about the condition. You know, we intersperse it with their favourite pop songs, make it light-hearted, you know, give them a platform, you’ve got to keep the energy up, because…
Alan: You don’t like it?
Tony: No.
Alan: That’s alright, that’s OK. ‘Inner-City Sumo’.
Tony: What’s that?
Alan: We take fat people from the inner cities, put them in big nappies, and then get them to throw each other out of a circle that we draw with chalk on the ground.
Tony: No, no it’s a bad idea.
Alan: Very cheap to make.
Tony: No.
Alan: Do it in a pub car park.
Tony: No.
Alan: If you don’t do it, Sky will.
Tony: Well I’ll live with that. Is that it?
Alan: Well, no, no. Cooking in prison.
Tony: Oh, no.
Alan: ‘A Partridge Amongst The Pigeons’.
Tony: What’s that?
Alan: Well, it’s just a title, I mean… erm, well, opening sequence, me, in Trafalgar Square, feeding the pigeons, going “Oh God!”
Tony: No, I’m sorry, no! Stop!
Alan: Whoa, whoa, whoa, erm, ‘Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank’.
Tony: No!
Alan: ‘Monkey tennis’?

Absolute classic stuff

One of my favourite scenes is when he is talking to the head of the farmers union Peter Baxendale-Thomas.

Radio Norwich: Up with the Partridge.
Alan: You’re joining me, Alan Partridge, and Peter Baxendale Thomas of the Norfolk Farmer’s Union. Now, yesterday I, sort of, trod in a rather large farmer’s pat when I made some comments about intensive farming. Where did I go wrong?
Peter: Well I think your comments were ill founded. They were deeply ignorant, they showed a complete lack of understanding of modern agricultural methods, and simply served to highlight the sort of intense stupidity that farmers encounter from armchair pundits who forget to think before they open their mouths. But with a full and frank apology that you’re about to give us this morning I’m sure you can dig yourself out of this rather ugly hole.
Alan: Yeah. Erm, sorry. Er, do you have any requests, anybody you want to say hello to, or…?
Peter: Look, I’m just trying to say that when you make ignorant comments like you did the other day, you serve simply to alarm the public and inflame the farmers, which is exactly what you’ve done. Why don’t you just apologise and make it nice and simple –
Alan: Thought that’d fool you. You could talk the hind-legs off a donkey. But your donkeys are probably born without hind legs because of all the chemicals you put in their… chips.
Peter: Alan, I don’t have donkeys. And even if I did I wouldn’t feed them chips. This is exactly the sort of rubbish you came up with the other day when you talked about putting a spine in a bap.
Alan: I admit that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have said bap.
Peter: Well, good. Well, that’s a start.
Alan: Well, no, I should have said baguette. Because a spinal column would fit in a baguette.
Peter: Listen, you’ve upset half the farmers in this community. You seem to alienate everybody you come across, including, I gather, your wife, which is why you end up living like some bloody tramp in a lay-by.
Alan: It’s a travel tavern.
Peter: I don’t care what you call your sordid little grief-hole. It makes no difference to me. The fact is that an awful lot of my colleagues are –
Alan: Are farmyard animals, yes.
Peter: You’re talking about my friends, here.
Alan: I’ve probably got more friends than you’ve got cows.
Peter: This is ridiculous.
Alan: How many cows have you got?
Peter: I’ve got a hundred cattle.
Alan: Yeah, I’ve got a hundred and four friends.
Peter: I don’t see what this is going to gain you. Why don’t you just issue a frank and full retraction of what you said, and you’ll get yourself out of a lot of silly bother.
Alan: Yeah, you are a big posh sod with plums in your mouth.
Peter: I don’t think it’s got anything to do with class –
Alan: And the plums have mutated and they’ve got beaks.
Peter: Beaks?
Alan: Yes, beaks.
Peter: Have you got any more of this, or do you want to stop at quacking plums?
Alan: No, no. You make pigs smoke.
Peter: I want to know where you think you earned the right to go swanning off on these ludicrous flights of –
Alan: Ah, swans. You feed beefburgers to swans.
Peter: Do I?
Alan: Yes, you do.
Peter: All right, well, perhaps you can tell me what’s wrong with feeding beefburgers to swans?
Alan: What?
Peter: Well if you fill a swan’s stomach up with beefburgers it’s full of fat and it’ll float better. That’s why we do it.
Alan: Really?
Peter: No, you complete cretin. I’m just contributing to this total farce. What else are you going to accuse me of?
Alan: I’ll tell you what. You farmers, you don’t like outsiders, do you? You like to stick to your own.
Peter: What do you mean by that?
Alan: I’ve seen the big-eared boys on farms.
Peter: Oh, for goodness’ sake.
Alan: If you see a lovely field with a family having a picnic, and there’s a nice pond in it, you fill in the pond with concrete, you plough the family into the field, you blow up the tree, and use the leaves to make a dress for your wife who’s also your brother.
Peter: Look, have I got anything else to say here or shall I go?
Alan: Well, listen, I’ll tell you what the point is. You have big sheds, but nobody’s allowed in, and inside these big sheds are twenty-foot high chickens. Because of all the chemicals you put in them.
Alan: And these chickens are scared. They don’t know why they’re so big. They go “oh why am I so massive?”

At this point Peter has had enough and leaves the studio leaving Alan on his own...

Alan: And they’re looking down on all the other little chickens, and they think they’re in an aeroplane because all the other chickens are so small… do you deny that? No. His silence, I think, speaks volumes.
Alan: And… and basically, do you agree that everything I’ve said thus far is completely correct?

Then his PA Lynn comes into the studio and takes Peter's place...

Lynn: Yes.
Lynn: Yes.
Alan: And do you also run over badgers in your tractor, for fun?
Lynn: Yes.
Alan: Thank you, Peter Baxendale Thomas. This is T’Pau.

Her contract HAS BEEN TERMINATED.

Alan: (After giving his valentine a rose) Keep it, keep it. You can buy me something of equivalent value; pint of bitter, big marker pen...

Lonely nights in the desert

Alan: "Mousse in a bowl is all well and good, but to put it on a person is demented! You've got it on the duvet, you've got it on the floor, you've got it on the balance..."

Jill: "The what?"

Alan: "The skirt thing round the side of the bed"

I'll never forget that phrase, 'dirty protest'. That's now in my everyday vocabulary.

"Ten-four, at ease...y-you're not in the army anymore."

Not on shortwave radio.

Do you want me to take out Sue Cook for ya?

God no!

Can you smell gas?

"Martin Bell looks like a Headmaster and Gerry Adams looks like a clown without makeup"