New Alan Partridge series to lampoon The One Show

Filming has started today on Alan Partridge’s first BBC show since Knowing Me, Knowing You.

This Time with Alan Partridge will see Steve Coogan’s hapless host being given ‘a career lifeline’, in the form of a fill-in spot on an ‘evening weekday magazine show’.

The One Show had better brace itself.

Actress Susannah Fielding will play Alan’s co-host on the couch Jennie Gresham, while Tim Key will be returning as Simon ‘formerly Sidekick Simon’ Denton, from the Mid Morning Matters series.

According to the publicity material released by the BBC: “The show itself is a heady mix of consumer affairs, current affairs, viewer interaction, highbrow interview and lightweight froth; very much the sweet spots for a man whose CV boasts over two decades of weekday local radio. And with an array of diverse subjects on the agenda, it promises the perfect fit for a man whose broadcasting style has been described as ‘equidistant between chitchat and analysis.’”

As with the Mid Morning Matters shows, the short documentaries Alan Partridge’s Scissored isle and Alan Partridge: Welcome to the Places of My Life, and the movie Alpha Papa, the show has been co-written by Neil and Rob Gibbons, and Steve Coogan.

The Gibbons brothers will also direct the new show, which will be made up of six 30-minute episodes, and will hit screens later this year.

Read more
Kim Cattrall: Sarah Jessica Parker is ‘not my friend’
Theory of Everything composer dies at 48
Clint Eastwood: Political correctness is ‘weakening society’