COOGAN ON HIS Chivalry EDGY #METOO COMEDY... isn’tdead..yet
Actor on playing sleazeball producer in a woke world and his Savile drama
HE’S been making us laugh for over 30 years – whether it was impersonating the likes of Prince Charles or Neil Kinnock on Spitting Image, Alan Partridge or Paul Calf or a version of himself in The Trip.
But the 56-year-old, whose new Channel 4 series Chivalry is about #Metoo, insisted: “You can be provocative and edgy and risqué, but you have to be kind.
“I don’t want to be nihilistic and I like things that ultimately head towards some sort of kindness.”
However awful the right-wing, selfcentred Partridge gets he usually ends up being the one embarrassed. In his travel series The Trip, with Rob Brydon, Coogan plays a version of himself who is sad and bitter and isn’t appreciated enough.
His last film, Greed in 2009, saw Coogan play a fashion mogul loosely based on Phillip Green who made his money from sweatshops and cons Syrian refugees into working for him – then ends up being mauled to death by a lion.
In Chivalry, which continues tonight, he plays a sleazeball film producer trying to navigate the new “woke” landscape.
Coogan said: “I’ve been producing, writing, directing and collaborating in uncensored and thought-provoking independent films and TV for a long time.
“I’m very lucky to do what I love, I’m very privileged and I feel like you shouldn’t ever get too comfortable creatively.
“I think it’s good to look at something and go, ‘How do you get round that? How do you make that work?’
“And anything that has potential pitfalls or problems becomes attractive by its very nature because you think, ‘Well, that’s a tough nut to crack, I wonder if we can crack it.’ And anything that’s worth doing risks failure.
“Otherwise it’s not really worth doing. It’s a challenge. And it’s also about being challenged yourself.”
Writing Chivalry made him look at his own past behaviour but enjoyed being able to argue with his co-writer and co-star Sarah Solemani. He enjoyed being provoked by her and would hate to be a
middle-aged man talking about subjects with other middle-aged men.
He revealed: “I heard a group of men in the pub the other night talking about refugees. They were clearly all bigots and there was something horrible about reinforcing each others’ bigotry without anyone challenging it. That is so unhealthy and really destructive.”
There was a time for men to be quiet after the 2017 sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein ignited the #Metoo movement on social media.
But Coogan reckoned now is the time for conversations and Chivalry came out of this. e said: “There was a time when men had to shut up and listen and that is entirely legitimate but when that’s happened, you go, ‘OK, now let’s have a conversation.’
“There’s some feeling that to have a conversation is somehow a concession and it’s not, it’s a way of moving things forward.”
Coogan and Solemani were in Greece shooting Michael Winterbottom’s film Greed in 2018 and had a discussion about #Metoo.
The conversation got “quite heated at times” and the director suggested the pair write something about it.
They wrote the pilot and then during lockdown penned the first series, which is on Channel 4 now.
He said: “We’d be writing with each other on Zoom and end up having a genuine, real argument to do with politics.
“Then after the row I’d say, ‘Just write down everything we’ve just said.’ And what we’d just said to each other would form the basis of a scene once we’d calmed down!”
Coogan stars as Cameron, a Hollywood producer who has to detoxify his film in the wake of the #Metoo movement.
Solemani plays feminist indie director Bobby, brought in to make the film work.
Coogan admitted he liked the idea of tackling a subject that can get as heated as the trans debate.
He said: “No one was talking about gender
Hpolitics and using comedy – people are terrified about the politics of it – so we thought, ‘Let’s talk about it rather than just virtue signal and walk the line.’
“It’s ostensibly a drama but we wanted to use comedy to take the edge off and make people relax.”
Coogan may have his work cut out finding the kindness he likes with his up-coming drama about Jimmy Savile.
He plays the reviled DJ who after his death in 2011 aged 84 was exposed as a depraved paedophile, despite rumours circulating about him for decades. Coogan justified the BBC One drama The Reckoning by saying “it’s better to talk about things than not talk about them” although conceded the drama is “walking a tightrope” but believes it has been done with “sensitivity”.
He said: “People have a sort of revulsion about the idea of even making it. Many of the victims came along to watch the filming.”
No wonder then that Coogan loves playing much-loved Alan Partridge.
And now 13 years after Partridge was on stage Coogan is back on treading the boards with Stratagem. He said: “It’s like a warm bath. I’ve got to a place now where I’m really comfortable with it – I don’t have to do it, I choose to do it.
“And that way, it will always be enjoyable. If the moment comes when I’m doing it because I have nothing else worth doing, that’s when you’re in trouble.”
Chivalry continues tonight, Channel 4 at 10pm. Stratagem with Alan Partridge tickets and info: Alanpartridgelive.com
It’s like a warm bath. I’ve got to a
place where I’m really comfortable with it. I don’t have to do it. I choose
to do it