Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa - The Review

It's a bold move these days making a movie just for a UK audience. However, The Inbetweeners proved a good TV spin off can generate pots of cash, so little wonder Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa was given a green light. 

Okay, the target audience is not thrill-seeking teens but middle aged fans of 90s sitcoms. Not the most lucrative demographic. 

Thankfully Partridge is often very funny and more satisfying than The World’s End. 

Wisely eschewing the ’sitcom star on holiday’ cliche that befell so many feature length big screen versions, APAP is amazingly small scale. 

Setting any movie in a provincial radio station looks like commercial suicide, and though there is a brief roadshow element in the third act, this is modest even for a TV show, let alone a film that costs around a tenner to watch. 

But while the canvas may be A6 rather than A0, the richness of the comedy paint is thick like oil. 

So many humourous canvases are too large and use watered down gags, so little wonder they fail; This is 40 being a prime example. 

Do you gain anything watching on the big screen compared to the pending DVD?

Well the audience laughing for one thing. After that, not really. 

Glad I saw it at the cinema, but the acid test is how well it will work on DVD/Blu Ray. 

And the moment a detrousered Alan tries to explain his condition to a copper is comedy gold.