ALAN PARTRIDGE ALPHA PAPA

The leap from novel to screen is a common route for film projects to take, but not so the jump from the small screen to the big screen.  Success stories include Police Squad (Naked Gun), The Inbetweeners and In The Loop (The Thick of It).  Less successful would be any British tv sitcom from the 70s.  The risks of getting involved with an established story, characters and most terrifying of all to any prospective producer or director – the loyal fanbase – are considerable.

On paper a film adaptation of Alan Partridge is a risky proposition because the tv series has been finished for quite some time so it’s not exactly fresh in the collective memory.  That series also relied on a very specific brand of humour, we  were never encouraged to empathise with the protagonist (Steve Coogan), quite the opposite, we were supposed to laugh at how pathetic and low he could sink . A big screen outing would seem to be a risky proposition for a character who would seem, on the surface, to be ill-suited to the medium.

It says much for the script work and acting in this endeavour that this film not only succeeds but exceeds all expectations.  Right from the opening credits we know the film will pull no punches as Partridge’s on air radio assistant makes a badly thought-out joke involving Muslims and a crude sex reference.  A lesser film would leave the laugh there but Alpha Papa achieves further laughs by Alan's horrified reaction and his verbal tap dancing to cover the gaffe.  This is the awkward, embarrassed humour of the film translating perfectly the spirit of the original programme  onto the big screen. This is not to say that there are not some changes, the character has some of his nastier qualities toned down (possibly to try to reach a new audience who might not be used to just how callous he could be) but the same desperate energy is very much in evidence.

Towards the end, as with many comedies,things begin to sag a bit.  Having put the characters in a certain situation the task of keeping the laughs going whilst tying up the plot causes a few misfires.  The relatively simple plot does not require much wrapping up and the end does feel a bit drawn out for the sake of squeezing out a few more laughs.  Some character plots don’t feel as resolved as they could be and a side-effect of having an anti-hero as a protagonist seems to get ignored completely. 

Very well written dialogue and set pieces are more than enough to carry the film through these failings and one joke aside (which feels like a repeat of an earlier one), the originality of the situations they place Partridge in make for some of the howlingly-funny and toe-curlingly, cringe-worthy laughs ever recorded on screen.

Final Verdict8/10 Truly a surprise,truly hilarious