Just where did the seemingly prevalent misconception that the first series of I’m Alan Partridge didn’t have a laugh track, while series two did, actually come from? I remember a friend bemoaning this fact to me at the time of the second series being broadcast, and I was perplexed by it. I didn’t have a copy of the first series at the time to check either. But it did. Listen
Maybe people think it’s the patrons of the restaurant that are laughing?
Anyway, we’ll come back to this.
The return of the show for the second series was heralded by this exact article, syndicated as it was across a dozen or so publications. This one happens to be from the New Ross Standard, dated 6th November 2002.
A slightly more verbose version of this piece appeared in the Irish Independent on the 9th November.
It rather bizarrely references Coogan’s work on the Krypton Factor as a major part of his CV.
On the 10th November, the Sunday World had a slightly different variant of that longer article, and a totally different illustrating photo.
When it came time for John Boland to review the first episode, on Saturday 16th November, in the Irish Independent, not only did he have the temerity to just regurgitate much of the above press release, he even made the erroneous claim about laugh tracks.
The next day in the Sunday edition of the same paper, Declan Lynch felt it necessary to inflict his views upon his readers. There’s some snide body-shaming and ill-disguised misogyny to get through first, and then there’s just some pointless comparison to The Office again.
I know this second series isn’t widely appreciated, but these early takes are just infuriatingly lazy. Here’s another one, saying exactly the same incorrect thing, this time in The Stage on Thursday 21st November.
Here’s some continuity from the time.
