Successful British Sitcom to Film Transitions

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)

Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge has been on a very long and wonderful journey. This began in 1991 when Coogan and Armando Iannucci created the character for BBC Radio 4’s ‘On The Hour.’ The transition from radio to television was swift with appearances in The Day Today, Knowing Me Knowing You, and I’m Alan Partridge. Ideas for a movie circulated in 2004 but nothing materialised until Rob and Neil Gibbons brought Partridge back in 2010, after an eight-year hiatus, for web series Mid Morning Matters With Alan Partridge. The next year a book, “I Partridge” was released and the multimedia continued with the film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.

The movie’s plot involves a siege at radio station North Norfolk Digital after it is hijacked by Pat Farrell (Colm Meany) following his dismissal by a multinational conglomerate. Luckily, Alan has escaped the building before Pat starts taking hostages. The police enlist his help in an attempt to stop Pat and free the hostages. It is a really interesting take on what to do with the character and really lets Coogan show what he can do in a different context with his creation. The movie deals well with the change in scale that comes from a sitcom to film transition.

There is a great balance which shows discipline in the writing and Declan Lowney’s directing. It can be so easy with a character so well-known and beloved to use the cinematic stage as an opportunity to give the audience the ‘best bits’ of the character and just give them things they’ve loved in the past. Alpha Papa gives you some old favourites and new ideas to progress the characters. It’s also like this with the characters. We have Lynn (Felicity Montagu) and Michael (Simon Greenall) returning, both as good as ever. But we also have Sidekick Simon (Tim Key), Angela (Monica Dolan) and Nigel Lindsay’s Jason.

There is also the balance between action and comedy. To derive so many laughs from a siege is an achievement, and it is consistently funny. The jokes are smart and layered and if you don’t really find one funny, they’ll be two or three in a minute to make you laugh. The script is written in a way where the lines are memorable and quotable. There is a lot to enjoy here, and the critics did as well, the film stands at 88% approval on Rotten Tomatoes. There was talk of a sequel, but with Alan doing live shows, more books, and This Time on the BBC, it might be a long wait.

The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)

Whether you liked The Inbetweeners TV series and subsequent movie being probably depends on what age you were when the television show first aired. Being 16 when the first episodes aired on E4, a week after the end of Skins series 2, I saw how the show turned from a great comedy on a digital television network to a nationwide phenomenon.

After three successful series, the decision was made to make a movie with the four friends Will (Simon Bird), Simon (Joe Thomas), Jay (James Buckley) and Neil (Blake Harrison) all finishing sixth form and embarking on a lad’s holiday in Malia. In that most reliable of teen movie tropes they try their hardest to get laid and come up against obstacles at every turn.

Seeing The Inbetweeners Movie with a full audience laughing their heads off in the cinema was a joy. To be honest, I couldn’t think of anything I’d want to do less over ten years on, but that’s how times and people change. The infectious laughter produced some sort of cultural event for teenagers and young adults up and down the country. It was a representation of life that a generation could relate to, it was so much more normal than glamourized portrayals of teens written by people who had no idea.

Obviously, the jokes haven’t aged well in today’s society. Some would say they were a bit much at the time. But the adolescent humour has been a tradition of gross-out comedy films since they first existed. The reason for the success of the show was partly the jokes, but also because the characters are so good and three dimensional. The relationship between the four protagonists is also a joy to watch and develops throughout the episodes. And the supporting cast of teachers and parents such as Mr. Gilbert (Greg Davies), Neil’s Dad (Alex Macqueen) and Simon’s Dad (Martin Trenaman) offer another layer of humour.

It was a great way to say goodbye to the characters we had got to know maybe a little too well over the past few years. The Inbetweeners Movie was full of laughs with some heart and tenderness added for good effect. Unfortunately, The Inbetweeners 2 in 2014 didn’t have the same balance of gross-out and humour. While there is a place for it, it may have been one goodbye too many.

Bean (1997)

Is Mr Bean a sketch show, a sitcom or something else entirely? Whatever it is, what director Mel Smith and writer Richard Curtis did for the film was both interesting, hilarious, and totally unexpected. Previously, Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean had been confined to his home and surrounding areas throughout the TV series. Whether it was a trip to the restaurant to ‘enjoy’ a steak tartare, going to the swimming baths, or unsuccessfully taking an exam, Bean was mostly constrained to one room in which he could cause chaos.

The idea to make him a security guard at an art museum and ship him off to the US unveiling of Whistler’s Mother to rid them of his incompetence is such an outside-the-box and intriguing concept. The movie doesn’t seem like it’s out of place. For some reason it works to have him causing conflict and tension in a family home. David Langley (Peter MacNicol) whose life is completely flipped when hosting Bean finds him to be a totally destructive presence whilst still liking him.

For a chaotic character, it’s a very well-disciplined film and the writing is exceptional. It draws upon a mix of ideas from the television series and new scenarios that work in an American context. Obviously, now living in a different age, you might scoff at the plausibility of Bean not being shot dead in the airport for pretending to conceal a firearm, but as a sequence, it’s so well made. There could be that risk that things could all get a bit ridiculous, and situations become unbelievable, but I think it works well.

Howard Goodall’s score is also a treat with the triumphant “Bean Theme: Mad Pianos” a highlight. It’s a really beautiful piece of music that compliments the scene of Bean making everything right after the destruction of the Whistler’s Mother painting.

Bean received mixed reviews from the critics mainly saying his character couldn’t sustain the runtime when he is used to 10 to 15-minute segments. However, audiences flocked to the movie at the cinema making it the second-highest grossing film of 1997. Number one was Titanic.

In The Loop (2009)

In The Loop is a spin-off of the remarkable political comedy The Thick of It. It follows various members of the US and UK governments as decisions are made whether to intervene in the Middle East and declare war.

Something In The Loop does which is very interesting is recycle characters from the TV show. Many of the characters from The Thick of It play different characters, but it never jars and always seems organic. Tom Hollander, who was not in the original show, is the Member of Parliament we follow as he goes from the glamour of US politics to the mundanity of a normal constituent surgery. We gets the likes of Chris Addison and James Smith in different roles then they play in The Thick of It. However, we still have Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker.

We are absolutely spoilt with the talent of the writing, something which The Thick of It was famous for. We have Armando Iannucci, who also directed. A pre-Succession Jesse Armstrong with his Peep Show writing partner Simon Blackwell, and Tony Roche who went to write on Veep with Iannucci. Every line is smart and refined. The dialogue is natural but clever. If you want to write comedy, watch something like this. It is so layered that new things are picked up with every rewatch.

The politics is spot on and it’s amazing how these British writers went on to write so much American drama and comedy that really felt the pulse of the country. Its satirization of the Iraq war could have become dated, but the political farce it exhibits is more relevant today than ever.