Steve Coogan has revealed he has considered ending the life of Alan Partridge — the bumbling broadcaster who made him a household name — after more than 30 years of playing the character.
The actor, who first created Partridge with Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris for 1991’s satirical radio show On The Hour, will reprise the role in a new BBC mockumentary, How Are You? It’s Alan Partridge, exploring Britain’s mental-health crisis.
But the 59-year-old has said the thought of dramatically closing the chapter has often crossed his mind.
“Part of me wants to kill him off by deliberately jumping the shark in a really bad way – like making a film where I fight Alan Partridge and kill him but he kills me or something like that,” he told The Mirror.
“Don’t end with dignity on a high - just drive it off a cliff.”
Over the decades, Partridge has starred in TV specials, films, The Oasthouse podcast and endless live appearances.
Coogan admits the character has become such a fixture that he once caught himself wearing Alan’s famously conservative wardrobe in real life.
“It wasn’t just a similar shirt – it was literally the same shirt, the same manufacturer in the same size,” he recalled. “I looked at it hanging up and thought, ‘I guess it’s happened.’”
Coogan has previously confessed the role has at times felt like an “albatross”, but that he now plays Partridge entirely by choice.
Speaking on the Dish from Waitrose podcast earlier this year, he said: “There was a time when I felt saddled with it. So, when I do Partridge, I do it through choice. Not because I have to.
“I'm doing some stuff at the moment, and it does make me laugh, so… I make notes in my phone.
“I think, I have a funny idea, I'm on the train and I'm chuckling to myself. I will laugh at myself as a Partridge comes into my head, and put it in my phone, on my own,” he continued.
“Or I'll look in a shop window and think about, I might say, ‘oh, what would Alan say about that. I'm still doing it now thirty years later, so it's like a condition now.’”
Four decades on, Coogan’s creation remains his most defining work, earning him six major comedy awards, including a BAFTA in 2017 for Alan Partridge’s Scissored Isle.
