The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV preview Grab that big plate and prepare for a feast of Partridge
HAS there ever been a BBC career that could match that of Alan Partridge’s for longevity? Huw Edwards might be in with a shout, ditto Pudsey Bear and Casualty’s Charlie Fairhead, but who has the depth of Alan, the breadth, the range of casual slacks and blazers? Which upstart could make it through a speech to Dante Fires sales staff after piercing his foot on a spike?*
There is no one quite like the anchor of This Time with
Alan Partridge (BBC1, Friday, 9.30pm). Back for a second series after a blistering first run, Alan once again strides the studios of early evening entertainment with only his co-host Jennie Gresham, his PA Lynn, his sidekick Simon and a host of neuroses to keep him company.
Steve Coogan won a watch that day in 1991 when he and Armando Iannucci first gave life to Alan in the Radio 4 comedy On the Hour. In creating the character of the seemingly jovial sports presenter who could unleash endless streams of drivel on command, the two let loose a monster.
What a pleasure it has been to watch his career shoot skywards. On the Hour became The Day Today; then it was I’m Alan Partridge and Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge.
Top that with two autobiographies, a feature film and several other projects, and an incredible 30 years have soon gone by. It has not been all gravy for Alan. Many will recall his wilderness years in a Travel Tavern, hanging on to his big plate like a lifebelt.
But Alan is a survivor, so no surprise that he should eventually turn up in a programme that bears more than a passing resemblance to The One Show. How long can it be before they give him the gig for real? He would be great in that. Or Countryfile. Or Antiques Roadshow. This is one career that will run and run.
It is hard to watch Saved by a Stranger (BBC2, Thursday, 9pm)
without thinking of ITV’s Long Lost Family. Both programmes are about reuniting people, in the latter case parents, children and siblings. Saved by a Stranger goes in search of individuals who at some point have changed the lives of others through acts of kindness great and small.
In the first of a four-part series we meet Karl, a young dancer caught up in the 7/7 terror attacks in London. He was on a Tube train when a bomb went off. As he lay there in the dark,
people screaming all around him, he heard the voice of a woman, asking to hold his hand. A connection was made, one he believes helped him survive. But who was she, and what had happened to her?
The second case is a family evacuated from Sarajevo with the help of a local doctor. Now living happily in Birmingham, they believe they owe this medic their lives and want to say thank you.
Presenter Anita Rani heads the searches, some of which are more straightforward than others. There’s much to-ing and fro-ing and ramping-up of drama as leads go nowhere at first. In another nod to Long Lost Family, photographs are produced.
Rani is a sharp interviewer who knows when to push and when to hold back, and she gets the most out of each story.
It would spoil the programme to say if the searches in the first episode succeed. Things do not turn out quite as expected. But stay to the end and you will not be disappointed.
It is the Oscars this Sunday.
Cinemas may have been shuttered for most of the past year but Tinseltown keeps ticking and turning out the films, this time for the small screen rather than the big.
Among the contenders for Academy Awards this year are Mank, a David Fincher-directed biopic of Herman J Mankiewicz, writer of Citizen Kane; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring the late, great Chadwick Boseman; Nomadland, with Frances McDormand as a lady in a van; and Judas and the Black Messiah, another biopic, this one of Fred Hampton, the civil rights activist.
The organisers have promised a glamorous, and safe, night to remember. But if you really cannot stand the thought of another socially distanced awards ceremony, treat yourself instead to Hollywood in Vienna (Sky Arts, Monday, 10pm).
Filmed at the magnificent Wiener Konzerthaus, with music performed by the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna and conducted by Boston Pops music director Keith Lockhart, this is an hour and a half of the finest compositions known to film fans.
It opens with, what else, Hooray for Hollywood, before going on to music from The Wizard of Oz. From there it is a canter through eight decades of scores, including music from the classics (Casablanca, Jaws) and the less well known but enchanting (The Shape of Water). Magical.
*See YouTube clip and howl.