Partridge, Alan

by I, Partridge We Need to Talk About Alan

  FYI – this was agriculture with the emphasis very much on ‘culture’. Face-painting and craft stalls were the order of the day, and an accordion player was on site, playing television theme tunes to delighted passers-by. I was happy to be there and soak all this up – it was proof positive that ‘culture’ isn’t confined to London. In fact, the only time I’ve ever seen an accordion in the Big Smoke was one strapped to a Romany woman162 outside a tube station. I enjoyed the fayre, although I left early because people were hassling me to return to TV.

  No sooner was I back at the TravTav, than Sue phoned.163 She’d been phoning for an hour. Something must be wrong. But something wasn’t wrong. Something was right.

  ‘Tony Hayers is dead,’ she said. ‘Tony Hayers. Dead.’

  This was the sort of thing Sue did for a laugh all the time, but on this occasion I knew she was genuine. Hayers was dead. I bowed my head for a full minute to spare a thought for his loved ones. A tear tumbled down my cheek as I pitied his younglings.164 Only then did I begin to smile. Whatever your views on human death, this was a good thing to happen. The world, the medium of TV and more specifically my mental wellbeing were all improved by the death of Tony Hayers, 41.

  I mined Sue for the key pieces of info. He’d fallen off a roof, trying to fix a TV aerial. My first reaction: the interference probably had nothing to do with the aerial; more likely caused by wide-band impulsive noise generated by nearby heating thermostat. That’s basic. I chuckled to myself – he was even clueless about television at home. Can’t say I’m surprised!

  My second: who’s taking over? I closed my eyes and waited for the answer. Not that I was desperate. I had plenty of ideas and was in demand for broadcasting work elsewhere. Hamilton’s Water Breaks had pencilled me as understudy for their next corporate video; I was in the early, early, early stages of repurposing Up With the Partridge for TV; and the pilot script for Swallow had received admiring glances whenever I left it poking out of my bag. But as the nation’s broadcaster, the BBC was probably my more natural home. Whether I would deign to return depended on the identity of Hayer’s successor.

  Sue grunted with pleasure. ‘They’ve only gone and give it Chris Feather,’ she said. Then she had to go because the 3.50 was starting and she had a bet on.

  This was the dream scenario. Before his liver transplant, Chris Feather had been a rising star at the BBC – blessed with the common touch and not a clever clogs. You wouldn’t find Chris in an ivory tower unless the Ivory Tower is the name of a pub! Our paths had crossed in local radio, when he’d been a fledgling producer, and I’d been impressed by his way with people and his knowledge of ELO. (It was he who had alerted me to the fact that Roy Wood could play the bassoon.)

  For his part, Chris had been blown away by my tenacity, my restless creativity and the fact that the camera/microphone loved me. He pledged that we’d work together in TV. I still have a beer mat on which he scrawled that very promise.

  Yes, he drank too much and, yes, he was slovenly and coasted through several years of his career and wasn’t a student of the genre in the way that I was.165 Chris was more of a casual observer. But he was the best man for the job and I’m not just saying that because he liked me.

  It was only polite that I got in touch to offer my congratulations. But that could wait. First I had to be there for Jane Hayers. I barely knew her and she’d not exactly covered herself in glory by marrying an idiot like Tony, but widows are needy people and I was going to do everything in my power to support her. So I sent her a travel clock wrapped in black tissue paper and in a black box – not the ones from aircraft.166 The card was fashioned from black card. Inside in silver Pentel, I’d simply written, ‘You are really sad’ and I’d made the ‘o’ of the word ‘you’ into a smiley face. (I’d thought about doing a sad face but I wanted it to be a celebration of his life.) I posted it to her and only then realised I’d forgotten to sign it.

  On the day of the funeral, I was one of the first to arrive. To my surprise Chris Feather was there too. Clearly, this wasn’t the forum to discuss my employment at the BBC so we acknowledged each other with a nod and I set about comforting Jane.

  Jane was bearing up well but as I approached I could see the suffering in and around her eyes. I held her and we cried together. She was happy with the travel clock, but was still upset at being widowed. Understandable. I hadn’t been expecting a mail-order clock to cancel out the grief, I’m not suggesting that.

  As she wept, I continued to hug her. But in no way was it sensual. Well, certainly not on my part – I can’t speak for her and I guess she was in a bad place. Grief manifests itself in strange ways. Besides, I’ve always thought people can be too quick to judge widows who strike up affairs soon after their loved one has died. Cut them some slack! It’s no reflection on the dead guy – it’s just that, sometimes, the sweet succour of sex can help speed up the grieving process.

  It was a day later and, after a respectful period of mourning for a man whose death I was over the moon about, I was in the office of the new head of programmes for BBC Television. Mister Christopher Feather Esquire.

  Chris was in good spirits, alert and of sound mind. He had drawn up a contract that would tie me to BBC TV on a £200,000-a-year deal. I broadly agreed with its terms and signed my approval on the dotted line.

  I wouldn’t say I was particularly ecstatic. It was no less that I deserved, which meant it was one positive that cancelled out the negative of Hayers’s snubbing me. But not a second positive that would have pushed my happiness level higher than average.

  Chris took the pen.

  ‘This might seem like it was drawn up on a whim, but I know exactly what I’m doing,’ he said, clearly and alertly. He winced as he gripped the pen.

  ‘I trapped my hand in a door earlier so my hand hurts and my signature might end up looking a bit weird, but I should still be able to sign this.’

  He did so slightly gingerly but in a very lucid and legally binding way. I shook his good hand and left.

  162 I actually have the utmost respect for elderly Romany women, after one of them read my fortune in a beer garden with incredible accuracy. I’d honestly never met this woman before but she reeled off intimate details of my life that left me dumbfounded. She listed five things that rang true as a bell.

  i) She said I was concerned about travel. CORRECT. I’d just put in an expenses claim for a non-work-related train journey (back to my car after an over-ambitious ramble) and was panicking that I’d be exposed.

  ii) She said someone close to me with the letter e in their name had had health concerns. CORRECT. My daughter DEnisE (my capitals) had had been suffering from migraines and was sent to see a specialist, although it turned out to just be stress-related illness from over-work.

  iii) She said I had been unlucky in love. CORRECT. Carol and others.

  iv) She said I would be given good news by a man wearing blue. CORRECT. Not three days later, I would told by a British Gas engineer that my combi boiler repair was covered by the original warranty.

  v) She said I should be wary of ‘the Birdman’. CORRECT x THREE. In the months that followed I was shouted at by Bill Oddie (looks at birds), crippled golfer Gordon Heron (name of a bird) and Jim Rosenthal (looks like a bird).

  Some people will say there’s nothing psychic about this – that these could apply to anyone, that they’re vague, or that every now and then she’s bound to get lucky. Alright, if it was just one or two maybe. But FIVE of them? Get real.

  163 Press play on Track 31.

  164 But at four and six, their memories of him would at best be vague and, on the plus side for them, his death would lead to a welcome cash injection because of the life insurance that people in his position all too predictably take out – don’t tell me that doesn’t sweeten the pill.

  165 I still am. Rare is the day I settle down for an evening in front of the Million Pound Drop or The Cube with Phil Schofield, without access to a notebook and fountain pen. I scrib
ble notes on production techniques and format. ‘Too much make-up on Bradbury’, ‘Impeccable, Tarrant. Impeccable’ or ‘Invent quiz show with world record prize’.

  166 Which are actually painted red. Try finding a black cuboid on a sea bed. It’d take you all bloody day!

  Chapter 22

  Homeslessnessness

  I BADE MY FAREWELL to the Linton Travel Tavern in the only way I knew: by taking my luggage to the car and paying my outstanding balance with a credit card. I was touched that Duty Manager Susan had taken the trouble to see me off/take my payment.

  ‘There’s your receipt, Alan,’ she said. I could tell she was keen to chat.

  ‘Six months, eh?’ I continued, commenting on the duration of my stay in the hotel. ‘That’s almost long enough to gestate a baby.’ I winced. It was a clumsy choice of words. I’d already established (see page 152) that she ached to have me inside of her. So it followed that she also longed to bear my child.

  For several seconds we embraced, or rather our hands did. Finally, with the handshake over I got into my car, made sure it was in neutral, turned the engine on, found the biting point, checked my mirrors, indicated to pull out, released the hand-brake and drove away. I’d also put my seat-belt on.

  All in all, it felt good. I was ready to embark on a new chapter of my life, roughly similar to the one before the one before this but better because my fee was higher. Yes, I’d be back at the BBC making television programmes and earning north of £200k per annum as a result.

  My intention was to resurrect Peartree Productions but with better, cheaper personnel. It had been wound down but not dissolved. I thought of it as more of a sleeping volcano, dormant for several months but always ready to ejaculate hot TV content into the air and over the surrounding land.

  I moved into a penthouse in Regent’s Park – not because I liked London or wanted to show them, show them all – but simply because it was practical for me to be close to TV Centre. I still drove back to Norwich for my radio shows.

  It was an expensive place to rent, certainly. I don’t know the exact figure but it didn’t really matter because I was earning north of £200k per annum. It was really big as well, with four good-sized bedrooms and a kitchen that had a coffee maker built into a wall, like a scalding hot vending machine (never used it).

  I was happy there, sipping coffee (I’d used the kettle) and looking out over the high-rise London skyline as I dreamt up the perfect guest list for the new series: Sir Clive Sinclair, Loyd Grossman, Charlie Dimmock, one of the Britpoppers, Sebastian Coe. Yes, these were ruddy good days.

  But these days were as fleeting as a collection of fast birds. Upsettingly for audiences and Alan Partridge alike, I was never given the chance to make my much-wanted TV shows. Because shortly after I had left Chris Feather’s office, Chris Feather had died. Right there in his chair.

  Yes, within minutes of signing the deal of his life, Chris had breathed his last. I sent a message to his daughter, saying ‘I hope it’s of some comfort to know that the last thing he did before he died was a truly courageous piece of commissioning.’ I know she received it because I got a ‘Read Receipt’ in my email inbox.

  At this point, you’re probably thinking ‘because’? But what’s that got to do with it? How does the death of Chris affect a contract between you and the organisation he worked for? And you’d be absolutely right to think that. It’d be like arguing that the Treaty of Versailles is now null and void because David Lloyd George isn’t with us any more.

  And, believe me, this was an argument I made very forcefully. A fortnight later, I was in TV Centre with my lawyer (who’s more au fait with citizen’s advice and whether ramblers can traverse your land than TV contracts – and was pathetic actually). Incandescent with rage, I don’t think I’ve ever screamed at television executives that loud before or since.

  And what a weaselly collection of pond-life they were. Chris’s successor, Jessica Boyle, was a sigh in human form, every utterance accompanied by a shrug or a rolled eye. For a woman in her position, her posture was a disgrace. Boyle is one of the new breed of BBC TV execs for whom television programmes seem to be a genuine inconvenience.

  She was flanked by Kev Butterworth, a once friendly BBC lawyer who might have been a strapping Irishman but is also one of the few men I know who’s beaten by his wife. I think it started from a sex game that went wrong 12 years ago. He once said to me, ‘If only I could remember the code word’ and then began to well up.167

  The rest were your usual mixture of John Lennon clones and failed CBBC presenters who have ended up in HR. They pretended to make notes as Boyle outlined exactly why she didn’t want another chat show from me. But it was all viewing figures and audience appreciation ratings and stats and figures.

  ‘Listen, love’ I said, ‘if TV was all about numbers, they’d put a keypad under the screen and turn it into a giant Casio calculator!’168

  This cut no dice with anyone in the room. ‘Alan, sorry …’ they all kept saying, but looking at each other rather than at me.

  ‘It’s a contract,’ I said. ‘A legal document.’

  ‘The contract, yes …’ Boyle sighed. ‘I wouldn’t set too much store by that.’

  ‘Is that right? Well, let’s see what the Director General has to say about this!’ I shouted and stormed out of the room to the end of the corridor.

  A minute or two later, I found myself back at the meeting room, having forgotten that the corridor is a circle. Too tired to argue or stomp any more, I collected my satchel and jacket to the sound of embarrassed silence and left.

  I knew then and there and then that this was the end of my relationship with BBC television. It was sad in a way. And so, before heading to the car park where my assistant and some sandwiches were waiting for me, I strolled back round the corridor – one last time. Ever the maverick, I went against the grain, meandering anti-clockwise through the corridors of laughing liberals. Then I bade the building good day and left.

  People have suggested I bottled out of taking the BBC’s breach of contract to the highest court in the land. Others say that have heard whispers that there were ‘discrepancies’ with Chris’s page of the contract.

  Neither is true. I’d just had enough. I could easily have seen out the contract, made a cool million and given them half a decade of my life. But I had bigger fish to fry. That day, I left the BBC, the BBC didn’t leave me.

  So the BBC had reneged on my new TV deal in a way that shredded any remnants of honour or integrity they may have had. I had racked up substantial debt, and cash flow meant that I defaulted on the rental agreement of my London apartment and was asked to leave. I was homeless.

  I’d only just left the Travel Tavern, and even though I could definitely have gone back to a warm welcome, £49 for room and breakfast was now out of my budget. I had nowhere to turn – and forlornly tramped the streets in my Rover 800.

  Night was beginning to fall and, with a seriously heavy heart, I was about to drive to the modest bungalow my assistant shared with her racist mother … until I remembered something! A solemn promise, a vow that had been made to me more than three decades before. The words had been intoned by my (metaphorical) guardian angel Trevor Lambert. He’d looked into my seven-year-old eyes and made me a rock-solid pledge: ‘You can come and stay any time you like.’169

  ‘Hello?’

  It was Sheila who answered the door, now a bit mumsy, like Fran had been. There was a raised inflection at the end of her greeting but these days you don’t know if that’s because it’s a question or because the speaker mistakenly thinks they’re cool.

  Quite reasonably assuming it was the latter, I replied ‘Hello’ and kissed her on the cheek. She recoiled a little bit and then tried to shut the door on me. She made a kind of yelping noise, which is when Kenneth appeared. He looked older because he was 35 years older than he used to be.

  ‘Alan?’ he said. Again, I wasn’t sure about the question/cool thing. But this time I said, ‘Yes
it’s me.’

  He smiled a bit and put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her. (It could be that she had a poor memory for faces and didn’t have access to a television set, I thought.) She didn’t demur so he said, by way of explanation: ‘Alan Partridge!’

  ‘Ahaaaaaaaa!!’ I boomed and Sheila bolted down the hall.

  I strode in and dropped my hold-all neatly to one side, before walking into the lounge and warmly greeting them all. They looked astonished – but then, it occurred to me, you would be. They’d not seen me since I was about 17! I’d not been in the house since I was seven!

  Trevor’s asthma was now something to behold, and he had some of the most severe breathing difficulties I’ve ever shared a room with. He was rigged up to breathing apparatus with an oxygen mask strapped over his mouth and nose. The guy was still audible though and, when reminded who I was, politely asked, ‘What can we do for you?’

  I reminded him of his invitation to come back and stay ‘any time’. At first I was embarrassed that he had no memory of it, but then I reasoned that he was old which explained why it might have slipped his mind. If not for that: awkwaaaaaard!!!!

  My timing couldn’t have been more perfect. A few months earlier and I’d have returned to a pretty empty nest with just Fran looking after her wheezing husband. But as luck would have it, Sheila and Kenneth had moved back into the family home quite recently because Fran had had a stroke and now needed round the clock care. For her part, she seemed a little diffident and didn’t say much, but then she was still a long, long, long way off a full recovery.

  After a quick cup of tea, I bade them good night and bounded up to my room, lying on the bed with my hands behind my head. (Lying on my back I mean, not my front. I was in a state of relaxation rather than internment.)

  Yep, it felt good to be in the home when I’d been at my happiest – and to be back among the family, although Emma no longer lived there (she was dead). Her space was filled, if you like, by Sheila’s husband Tim, a pretty nice bloke who had seen my shows and said he quite liked them.