“Mental health, if I could use an outdated term, has just gone mental,” says Alan Partridge in his new six-part BBC series, the first time Steve Coogan’s parody of a television presenter has been on screens since 2021.
Now, first things first: you’d be forgiven for finding Partridge a bit old hat. The character created by Coogan in 1991 exists more in the mind’s eye these days than on the box; he's become the fodder of smartarse university graduates who quote old episodes until the jokes are flogged to within an inch of their lives. But like wide-leg jeans, you could argue Partridge has come around again, fitting rather snugly into the cultural zeitgeist.
