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Once again, Alan Partridge faces turmoil! However, many are in similar straits today? When we last saw him on screen, Alan had an on-air breakdown while hosting the light magazine show This Time, concluding the season by being shut out of the BBC. In the opening of his independent production, the non-fiction piece How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge), the broadcaster reveals he’s experienced another setback by collapsing onto a woman during an interview at an industry gathering for an agricultural firm. Tough times, but personalities of Partridge’s calibre know how to bounce back: connect struggles with societal themes and see if you can get a series out of it.

Exploring the Epidemic of Anxiety

How Are You? then, sees Steve Coogan’s immortal alter ego in investigative guise, probing widespread emotional struggles that he perceives as escalating: “In old-fashioned language, it’s gone crazy!” The journey will see him experiment with religion, reconnect with friends from school, and embark on calming rural strolls, alongside facing his history. Episode one builds towards a hostile but cathartic reunion with “Sidekick” Simon Denton (Tim Key), his old partner from past shows, and throughout the series, hidden moments from his career emerge.

For Coogan and his long-term writing/directing collaborators, How Are You? marks a change of pace. While the previous show explored new ground, How Are You? sometimes rehashes past ideas: as well as directly reviving old formats, it mirrors earlier faux-documentaries of the last decade. With his personal issues seeping into the content, viewers will think of his podcast work.

Contrasting Alans

It creates a slight challenge. We see two versions of Alan: Successful Alan (with high-profile jobs) and Struggling Alan (without work), and even though the underdog Alan shone in the classic series I’m Alan Partridge back in 1997, a reflective version has emerged lately in books and audio projects. How Are You? brings us into his space and includes Kelly in the role of Katrina, Alan’s wildly unsuitable paramour from the podcast. Yet this heartbreaking narrative – he refuses to accept her betrayal with his friend and local tanning-centre mogul – seems better suited to podcast pacing, enabling mental imagery to amplify laughs. When we can’t see him, Wilderness Alan has room to breathe: television nowadays feels more suited to putting Winning Alan under pressure and observing his collapse, as seen before.

The Genius of Sloppy Errors

Yet, these issues pale beside a key reality: whatever medium he inhabits, Partridge remains the funniest comic creation in Britain, and even placeholder Partridge has more laughs-out-loud per half-hour than other TV programs. How Are You? features Alan as star, producer, and director, which opens up his genius for sloppy errors and poor editorial decisions. If explosive fruit edits symbolize struggles, that’s what we’re getting, and no one corrects his verbal errors or the phrase “mental bealth henefits” in his voiceover. The brief pained expression he makes exiting aware that the segment was a failure consistently amuses, and the same goes for his transitional clips, the best of which sees him attempt to fix us with a sympathetic smile while drinking tea clumsily.

Striking Moments and Feelings

Can anything top his skip-side groans? Surely not. He is also a visual treat, with his new dye job several shades too light to be plausible, and his clothing showcasing loud pants, contrasting shoes, multiple gilets and excited response to fashion trends.

Additionally, the theme offers peeks into his inner world that have been there ever since the Gibbons brothers took over co-writing duties. Repeatedly, the show achieves emotional depth, where Alan’s lack of self-awareness reveals a sadness that briefly evokes strong feelings, before the persona snaps back in and we’re crying from laughter again instead. It succeeds because of enduring fandom: any version of Alan Partridge is always welcome back.