For Steve Coogan (The Look Of Love, The Trip Series 2) and Alan Partridge fans the recent release of Alpha Papa will have been something that you will have been looking forward to since it was first announced. For everyone else there might not be the same level of interest, so there’s two ways to look at the film in terms of a review, the fan perspective and the general cinema audience.
However, either way you look at it, from whatever outlook, there’s going to be an element of disappointment in watching the film mixed in with a hell of a lot of laughter. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa has got a lot of great comedy moments, but it falls short of the natural brilliance of the two series that made up I’m Alan Partridge, where the A to the P first laid bare his narcissistic personality.
The film picks up with Alan as North Norfolk Digital is about to be taken over by new owners who want to usher in a new fresh faced feel to the station, renaming is Shape Radio. When it looks like he could be in the firing line he nudges the new owners in the direction of fellow DJ, Pat Farrell (played by Colm Meaney of Star Trek The Next Generation and Get Him To The Greek fame), who they fire instantly.
When Pat returns at the celebration party armed with shotgun and takes the entire station hostage, prepared only to talk to Alan, he suddenly gets a new chance in the media spotlight and he looks set to try to milk it for all its worth, despite the creation of a gaffer tape gun handle that Pat’s made for Side Kick Simon (Tim Key).
Key has a few good lines, but doesn’t feature all that much. It’s a similar situation for Simon Greenall, who brings back Geordie, Michael. Lynn (Felicity Montagu), however, is a big part of the film and she’s genuinely impeccable in terms of her interaction with Alan, her delivery of lines and her facial humour. Coogan is also pretty much flawless for the majority of the film, but there’s just the odd one or two flaws in character portrayal that have more to do with the storyline and script than Coogan’s characterisation. We don’t want to give too much away, but the paparazzi and toilet duck moments jar the most.
The storyline just about holds it together for the duration of the film, justifying the big screen production, and it’s great to see Alan Partridge back in a full production like this. Although there are lots of individually brilliant moments, there are the odd one or two low points that takes Papa Alpha a step too far away from the personality that we’ve all come to know and love.
That aside, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is still worth a watch from either perspective. Fans will probably morn the flaws more than other, but they’ll also laugh the hardest at the high points. Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci and Peter Baynham have pulled off a good return for Partridge, but it’s not quite the absolute classic that it could have been.
Alpha Papa review: 3.9/5
