Steve Coogan

Steve Coogan

Date of birth: 14-10-1965
Born in Middleton, near Manchester, Steve Coogan trained at the city's Polytechnic School of Theatre. He started out as an impressionist – his first stand-up appearance being in 1986 – and went on to provide many of the voices for Spitting Image on ITV.

However, he became bored with the limitations of that act, and started creating characters to perform on the comedy circuit, and in 1992 he won the Perrier award for the show he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe with John Thomson. Coogan gave boorish, student-hating Paul Calf his first screen outing on Saturday Zoo in 1993. This character, and his loose sister Pauline – also played by Coogan – made several TV shows, including Paul Calf's Video Diary that went out on New Year’s Day 1994 and Pauline Calf's Wedding Video that went out at the end of that year – subtitled Three Fights, Two Weddings And A Funeral. Other early characters included dreadful comedian Duncan Thickett and health and safety officer Ernest Moss.

But Coogan is best known for Alan Partridge, who first appeared in Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci's Radio 4 show On The Hour in 1991, which transferred to TV as The Day Today in 1994. Coogan was part of an ensemble cast, but his inept, pompous sports reporter was considered to have enough mileage for him, with Iannucci and Patrick Marber, to create the spin-off spoof chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You – which again started on radio before transferring to TV for two series in 1994 and 1995. The character’s downfall after losing his precious TV show was charted in I'm Alan Partridge, which started in 1999.

Between the two series, he starred in Coogan's Run, a series of one-off playlets reviving the Calfs, and featuring a string of other characters, most notably insensitive salesman Gareth Cheeesman. He also tried to launch the smarmy singer Tony Ferrino, but with little success, before returning to Partridge. His much anticipated spoof horror series Dr Terrible’s House Of Horrible aired in 2001, but also failed to take off. Saxondale, which started in 2006, was largely seen as a return to TV form for Coogan, who played a rock-loving pest controller.

Coogan’s film career began inauspiciously with a cameo in The Indian in the Cupboard in 1995, followed by the role of Mole in Terry Jones's 1996 version of The Wind in the Willows.

His first significant cinematic role was the lead in The Parole Officer in 2001, playing a Partridge-like buffoon. The following year he starred as Factory Records founder and Granada TV presenter Tony Wilson in Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People. He reunited with Winterbottom for A Cock and Bull Story – an attempt to film the unfilmable Tristam Shandy novel with Rob Brydon in 2005. He also starred in Around The World In 80 Days opposite Jackie Chan, Marie Antoinette, and the 2008 High School comedy Hamlet 2.

Coogan also founded Baby Cow Productions [named after Paul Calf] with Henry Normal, which has produced such comedies as The Mighty Boosh, Nighty Night and Marion and Geoff.

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© Channel 4

From The Oasthouse: The Alan Partridge Podcast series 2

Out today on Audible

The last time we saw Alan Partridge he was being denied entry to Broadcasting House after an ill-judged Network-style meltdown on This Time left him stuck outside without his BBC pass.

Fast-forward 15 months and he’s back outside some different studios, loitering in his car near the headquarters of North Norfolk Digital. And also back rediscovering his love of podcasting – a genuine passion, he’s keen to reassure us, not a cynical bid to get his old job back after a spell in the broadcasting wilderness.

‘I’ve been itching for ages to step back into the fray and podcast again,’ he insists, two years after his surprise embrace of the genre with the first, post-lockdown series of From The Oasthouse. In his mind, he popularised what was a hitherto obscure format, and now is back with 11 new episodes to save a floundering  genre that’s lost its edge.

For all the irony, podcasting may well be the medium Steve Coogan’s mild-mannered monster is made for, giving him free rein to voice his thoughts, however vacuous, petty or accidentally damning.

The intimacy and lack of filter when there are 25 minutes to fill with nothing but his own thoughts offer a revealing insight into the man he thinks he is compared to the jealous, shallow and arrogant personality he projects. That the character is so fully-formed, both in Coogan’s performance and writing with Rob and Neil Gibbons, allows the listener to fully immerse in his little world.

Episode one of the new series is concerned with him trying to secure another meeting with the ‘the Mr Big Balls of commercial radio’ following a chance encounter that might have opened a door back to East Anglian broadcasting, thanks to his bad-mouthing of all those currently working on the station. This is prime Partridge territory, pathetically desperate to get back on on air,  since that is how he gives his life meaning.

Elsewhere, in his enjoyably rambling monologue (that also includes a lovely callback to a classic I’m Alan Partridge scene)  we get a touch of his reactionary core when he idly muses about tiptoeing around contemporary issues he doesn’t understand. Oh for the sanctuary of his neighbour’s vintage car where they can close the doors, pretend its still 1959, and say whatever they really feel.

Not that Partridge is too shy when it comes to mouthing off about things he’s certain of, whatever they are actually true or not. He can quote TS Eliot he without knowing who the writer was, and he amusingly reveals how he ‘wrote a paper’ about a mortality trend he’d observed in the local hospital. ’Not a scientific paper – a personal one’. Talk about doing your own research…

Even if podcasting is his natural home, it doesn’t come with the kudos or money that Partridge requires, at least not at his level – so he’s even forced to broadcast adverts for his own side projects. But who wouldn’t like to see the Partridge Players’ Queen-based musical Rhapsody of Bohemia, featuring Alan as Brian May, before the copyright lawyers close him down?

Future episodes see Partridge trying ‘a raft of creative, physical and romantic outlets’ since he’s now got time on his hands and a void in his life that needs filling. From The Oasthouse could certainly fill a hole in yours…

• Series two of From The Oasthouse: The Alan Partridge Podcast was released today via Audible.

From the Oasthouse: The Alan Partridge Podcast
Series 2 episode guide

Episode 1, Rekindlings: A chance encounter with a local radio exec offers Alan hope of a professional revival

Episode 2, Novel: Keen to open up new revenue streams and inspired by a friendly proctologist, Alan has decided to write a novel. 

Episode 3, Stake Out: Alan lies in wait hoping to catch fly tippers who have been dumping building materials on a patch of grass behind the cul-de-sac. 

Episode 4, Potholing: Alan and his friend Ronald go potholing but Ronald stays in the car because he’s in a mood but that’s Ronald for you.

Episode 5, Tyneham: Alan visits a living museum to remember a time when sacrifice mattered

Episode 6, Wild Swimming: Although not a Guardian columnist, Alan goes wild swimming and talks about it at length.

Episode 7, Time Travel: After being teased by some council workers while speed walking through a park, Alan reflects on the death of his dog and ponders the possibility of going back in time.

Episode 8, Katarina: Alan’s online search for love has so far proved fruitless but could Mrs Right be someone closer to home? 

Episode 9, Brand Ambassador: Still to receive a job offer, Alan wonders if his commercial endorsements are creating a conflict of interest.

Episode 10, Alpha Male: After taking an online course - The Confidence Muscle with Chip Keeble - Alan musters the machismo to make a grand gesture to the woman he loves.

Episode 11, Perfect Day: Alan decides to focus on what matters - an afternoon teaching his grandchildren about the wonders of the solar system.

  

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Published: 22 Sep 2022

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Agent

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