Steve Coogan has credited his lower-working class upbringing as helping him get ahead in comedy.

The Alan Partridge creator said he first realised his background was a ‘superpower’ when he went to drama school.

He said was initially ‘intimidated’ among the middle-class students there because ‘I hadn’t read Stanislavski I just watched telly’.

But them he realised: ‘They were good at talking about it [acting] but not good at doing it. And not very observant, they couldn’t write working-class dialogue.The only working class people they knew was their plumber.

‘But I recognised those speech patterns, and soaked it all up  like a sponge. I went from being quite intimidating to thinking I had a superpower.’

Speaking at the BBC Comedy Festival in Belfast yesterday also said that sitting at the junction of two classes helped as he started his comedy career. 

He said he felt like an ‘arriviste’ when he first started on the circuit.

‘I came from Manchester and I did these variety shows with Jimmy Tarbuck and shiny suits’, he said. ‘I was 22, 23 and that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted like Stephen Fry. I wanted to be in that world. So I tried to meet the right people  – Armando Iannucci, Patrick  Marber, I made contacts with these people in London. 

‘But my Manchester gang were much more grounded, like Caroline Aherne and John Thomson, Henry Normal…

‘So I sort of had this northern gang and this sort of clever Oxbridge gang, and I sort of sat some of the middle. Both were fundamental in a way, because the Oxford gang was obviously ambitious, and my northern gang made sure I made people laugh.’

Coogan was at the event to talk about his next project How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge), which was exclusively screened to the Belfast audience.

Speaking of his alter-ego’s longevity, he said: ‘The reason he still has currency is that - especially over the last 10,15 years with the Gibbons [brothers Neil  and Rob, who he now writes with] — we use it as an avatar to talk about very difficult things, which are ordinarily spiky or unpalatable. We have Alan try to be relevant by talking about, say, transgender [issues].

‘The character has evolved from being a reactionary Little Englander to try to lean into, for want of a better word, woke thinking. or enlightened thinking. He’s probably made a judgement its better to lean into it - it’s probably an entirely cynical decision on his part.’

‘I like characters who, however obnoxious they are, have some vulnerability do you cut them some slack.You run out of steam if they are unrelenting awful.

‘I used to do live stand-up comedy quite a lot, and occasionally tour. That's really quite useful, because there's nowhere to hide. There’s no point being clever getting the audience to nod their head sagely, because that doesn't work. 

‘It’s a rude awakening. I try to marry stuff that might be more esoteric that makes me laugh with stuff that makes the crowd laugh. But generally you shouldn’t try to second-guess an audience.

‘With comedy it’s very hard to quantify and commodify, you just have to seek out people who are funny for reasons you don’t understand. Someone like Tim Key is just funny in a way I don’t fully understand.’

Responding to BBC comedy chief Jon Petrie’s comments earlier in the festival  that big budgets don’t necessarily make comedies any funnier, Coogan said: ‘Limited budget is a good thing – necessity is the mother of invention

‘If you have a lot of resources then you can make bad decisions because  you can do anything. When you have  budget constraints, then you have to think inventively to solve problems.’

A case in point was I’m Alan Partridge, set largely in a Travel Tavern. Coogan said his inspiration there was asking: ‘Where have people not set comedies before?

‘That middle management world of chain hotels, company cars, and so  on. There’s something so unromantic about that  functional relationship, a bit soulless, especially for someone who wants to aspire to something with more depth. 

‘I was thinking about characters like Tony Hancock and Basil Fawlty and Captain Mainwaring. They're all people who feel like they should be more recognised, that they’re under-appreciated people. 

‘It's a common denominator: British people who are failures who have something you admire, some feeling, some compassion for. They're misjudgments by people who are weak and misguided, not just not complete idiots.’

Coogan was asked about a memorable scene from that series when he yelled ‘Dan!’ numerous times across a car park.

He said: ‘ I don’t think we had a fixed number of "Dans" - but more than people think is wise.

‘When you’re writing it’s good to challenge yourself. To wonder if you can keep going with it and make people uncomfortable the go past that  to make it funny again. It’s quite risky, and you're not supposed to do it!’

He also said he took to heart a comment he heard from vintage scriptwriting duo Ian La Frenais  and Dick Clement.

He also said he took to heart a comment he heard from vintage scriptwriting duo Ian La Frenais  and Dick Clement, who said ‘ if you make a plot that’s too complex, you’re hostage to that in the edit’.

‘Comedy comes from character and having a simplish plot,’ Coogan said – making an exception for farce.  ‘ I’m more intersected in those microscopic awkward moments of real life,’ he said. 

Coogan accepted he would never be able to create another character that could replicate Partridge’s success, saying: I wouldn’t like to say here;’s the new Alan Partridge, I’m never going to match that.’

But he also said he had a soft spot for Saxondale, saying: ‘I do miss doing him and I do hanker to reinvent him in some way. He’s a character I like because he’s apolitical but he’s antiestablishment and that feels quite "now".’