Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedian and actor best known for creating the grotesque character Alan Partridge.
On the island
Eight records
It was during the time when when punk rock was just emerging and I was a bit too young to go to the nightclubs but just young enough to be excited about its its irreverence and its maverick status.
We Have All the Time in the WorldFavourite
I love the music of John Barry and to me all the music of John Barry really reminds me of that cinematic escape in Louis Armstrong's vocal on it is wonderful.
This is my brother's band. He had his moment in the sun in the early 90s with a song called Can You Dig It? It reminds me of a very happy time in my life when... his band was doing really well and I was just starting out
I love Talking Heads and David Byrne, who's another example of one of those people who are... outside the ordinary.
Specifically because it's from the film I did with Michael Winterbottom called 24 Hour Party People where I played Tony Wilson, an iconic Manchester figure.
Nimrod (from Enigma Variations)
I'm very sort of proud to be and happy to be from England... there's an optimism about the future that I find really uplifting and really positive. So it's a really comforting piece of music.
I love the lyrics, I love the fact that it captures a period of time where pe young people were exploring Europe and the world was changing and it brings something alive every time you hear it.
I went to see the Smiths at the Free Trade Hall in 1983 when I was seventeen and Morrissey was twenty-four and he bought me a pint of bitter, which I will remember forever.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:28What was your answer when [your teacher] said [drama school was a precarious profession]?
It sort of made me annoy that to try and do something extraordinary was unwise. But to be charitable to him I think he thought he would flush me out, and if I really wanted to do it then despite what he said to me, then clearly I was committed.
Presenter asks
2:43Why was it comedy at that point?
Because I wasn't interested in football, I wasn't interested in sport... I found I could do impersonations and I could entertain people, not in a kind of a class clown kind of a way, but in a very sort of with my little coterie of friends who liked our little exclusive sense of humor.
Presenter asks
5:04Do you think people say that about you actually, deep down he is a bit Alan Partridge?
There's things about me that I've sort of channelled into Alan Partridge, but Alan Partridge was a collective effort... sometimes I would say things as myself, not trying to write Alan. And I remember Patrick Marburt just writing down what I'd said as myself, thinking that was funny, saying just say what you said. And I'd be slightly insulted by the fact that he thought that what I'd said as myself was worthy of Alan Partridge.
The keepsakes
The book
Laurence Sterne
Well, I'll take Laurenston's Tristram Shandy because I haven't read it. Um I never managed to get through it. I thought if I'm on the island I'll be able to read the whole thing.
The luxury
a fully restored Morris Minor Traveller
my luxury would be a fully restored Morris minor traveller... the one with the wooden back, the wood the wooden detail, the wooden frame, because it's a car that I spent lots of happy memories of childhood in, travelling back and forth to Ireland, and I'd want one of those with vinyl seats, and if it was a sunny day, I could get inside and smell that smell that only hot vinyl in a car has on a sunny day, and that would make me very happy.
Presenter asks
6:30Were you comfortable with the success of Alan Partridge, such a big character?
I remember afterwards, Patrick Marba said, you do realize, he said, this character that you recorded tonight is going to change your life. People are going to be shouting that aha at you. I remember thinking at the time, wow, that would be extraordinary. What an amazing thing that would be.
Presenter asks
14:08How did you deal with [the tabloid intrusion]?
I took it all very personally and I saw it as being just intrusive and I was worried about people around me, people who aren't interested in that kind of thing. I I felt guilty about people who are disconnected with having a public profile as I have, being dragged into things. That that made me feel bad.
Presenter asks
27:59Are you satisfied with what you've done, or are you somebody who always has a sort of little bit of sand in the oyster?
I'm very, very grateful to be working, quite frankly, certainly in this day age, and I never lose sight of that. But yes, of course, sometimes you think, well, I'd rather do a bit of this or a bit of that, and I don't think I'm attracted to a kind of discomfort. I think that's what it is. And certainly if I do a job, if there's something about it that unnerves me or worries me or runs the risk of me making a fool of myself or getting it wrong and making a big screwing up in a public way. It makes me want to do it.
“I feel comfortable when I'm writing, I feel comfortable when I'm performing, and I'm not entirely comfortable when I'm myself. But if you like, I'm comfortable with that discomfort.”
“I was actually crying, and I remember looking across in the mirror and thinking, oh, that's interesting, that's what grief looks like.”
“The people in my life who know me and love me, what they think of me is the most important thing, not how I'm defined by people who don't know me.”
“[Mimicry] is a trick and it's not about using your brain. It's just about having a facility. So to me it's but it's lowbrow and it bothers me to be associated with it.”