life, it convinced me that I should look for a fresh challenge. Like so:
Alan asking sports questions = a bloody good sports interview.
Which means, if you divide both by ‘sport’:
Alan asking questions = a bloody good interview.
It went something like that anyway. Fernando’s had algebra in them, but his maths homework wasn’t important back then. That might sound cruel but my focus was almost exclusively on my continued career progression. 76
At a BBC party that autumn, I introduced myself to a commissioning editor by the name of Adam Walters. I remember the moment well.
‘You’re Adam Walters, aren’t you?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
Walters was being talked of as the next big thing in BBC commissioning, something I found hard to understand (and still do) given that the role of a commissioner is basically to put a tick or a cross in a box. Who knows? Maybe he had neat handwriting. Or maybe he had friends in high places.
Either way, Adam was a good person to know. So I found out where he played squash and would make sure I happened to be having my shower and talc there at the same time as he/him.
Quaffing a juice afterwards one day, I suggested that I come in to talk about the idea of a chat show, in which I, the chat show host, would chat to guests on the show. He was intrigued at what was a really fresh idea and an appointment was duly arranged for that afternoon.
I ran home, excess talc spilling from the bottom of my trouser legs. I popped on my newest blazer, brushed my teeth, waited six hours, brushed them again and called a cab. As I zoomed towards Shepherd’s Bush, I opened the window, imagining my face on the billboards that massively spruce up Holland Park and that make Shepherd’s Bush roundabout a pleasure to circumnavigate. It would be called ‘Alan’s Show’, I’d decided, and would be absolutely ace.
I bounded into the foyer, announced that I was there to see Adam and waited. And waited. The receptionist couldn’t find any record of Mr Walters. ‘Are you sure he works for BBC TV?’ Then everything went quiet.
Mouth dry, head spinning, and suddenly keen for a poo, I staggered from Television Centre. Steadying myself against an old woman who was there for the BBC Tour, I took another step into the street and bellowed at the sky.
‘They want me back on the radio!!!’
You see, Walters was a radio commissioner. Of course. Of course . I should have known. He had that lifeless, grey, dead-eyed quality that they all have at Broadcasting House. I called a cab and, with a heavy heart, went for a meeting with Adam Walters. Of Radio 4.
It wasn’t the best meeting I’ve ever had. Almost on auto-pilot, I ran through all the famous people I knew (who, I said, I could definitely get) and Walters seemed duly impressed. I was in a seriously bad mood, no doubt, but Adam’s compliments and the excellent selection of biscuits there soon cheered me up. He all but offered me a show there and then. Paydirt!
People ask me if I found that daunting. They don’t know Alan Partridge. If anything was making me apprehensive it was that a light-hearted comment – in which I joked that I owned my own production company and would make the show myself in exchange for a hefty development and production fee – was somehow taken at face value. 77
So the next morning I created a production company by putting posters up around Norwich and giving work experience to family friends. And lo, Peartree Productions was born.
Alan’s Show – this was a working title – began production on 9 August 1992. Peartree Productions was a thrilling place to work, dynamic and young – indeed, many of the staff should technically have been at school. We really felt we were making something important. And so it proved.
We worked out a format – I would ask questions, the guests would answer, as if in conversation – and after a few trial runs I had it down pat. Unable to afford celebrity bookers, we relied on two
Alan asking sports questions = a bloody good sports interview.
Which means, if you divide both by ‘sport’:
Alan asking questions = a bloody good interview.
It went something like that anyway. Fernando’s had algebra in them, but his maths homework wasn’t important back then. That might sound cruel but my focus was almost exclusively on my continued career progression. 76
At a BBC party that autumn, I introduced myself to a commissioning editor by the name of Adam Walters. I remember the moment well.
‘You’re Adam Walters, aren’t you?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
Walters was being talked of as the next big thing in BBC commissioning, something I found hard to understand (and still do) given that the role of a commissioner is basically to put a tick or a cross in a box. Who knows? Maybe he had neat handwriting. Or maybe he had friends in high places.
Either way, Adam was a good person to know. So I found out where he played squash and would make sure I happened to be having my shower and talc there at the same time as he/him.
Quaffing a juice afterwards one day, I suggested that I come in to talk about the idea of a chat show, in which I, the chat show host, would chat to guests on the show. He was intrigued at what was a really fresh idea and an appointment was duly arranged for that afternoon.
I ran home, excess talc spilling from the bottom of my trouser legs. I popped on my newest blazer, brushed my teeth, waited six hours, brushed them again and called a cab. As I zoomed towards Shepherd’s Bush, I opened the window, imagining my face on the billboards that massively spruce up Holland Park and that make Shepherd’s Bush roundabout a pleasure to circumnavigate. It would be called ‘Alan’s Show’, I’d decided, and would be absolutely ace.
I bounded into the foyer, announced that I was there to see Adam and waited. And waited. The receptionist couldn’t find any record of Mr Walters. ‘Are you sure he works for BBC TV?’ Then everything went quiet.
Mouth dry, head spinning, and suddenly keen for a poo, I staggered from Television Centre. Steadying myself against an old woman who was there for the BBC Tour, I took another step into the street and bellowed at the sky.
‘They want me back on the radio!!!’
You see, Walters was a radio commissioner. Of course. Of course . I should have known. He had that lifeless, grey, dead-eyed quality that they all have at Broadcasting House. I called a cab and, with a heavy heart, went for a meeting with Adam Walters. Of Radio 4.
It wasn’t the best meeting I’ve ever had. Almost on auto-pilot, I ran through all the famous people I knew (who, I said, I could definitely get) and Walters seemed duly impressed. I was in a seriously bad mood, no doubt, but Adam’s compliments and the excellent selection of biscuits there soon cheered me up. He all but offered me a show there and then. Paydirt!
People ask me if I found that daunting. They don’t know Alan Partridge. If anything was making me apprehensive it was that a light-hearted comment – in which I joked that I owned my own production company and would make the show myself in exchange for a hefty development and production fee – was somehow taken at face value. 77
So the next morning I created a production company by putting posters up around Norwich and giving work experience to family friends. And lo, Peartree Productions was born.
Alan’s Show – this was a working title – began production on 9 August 1992. Peartree Productions was a thrilling place to work, dynamic and young – indeed, many of the staff should technically have been at school. We really felt we were making something important. And so it proved.
We worked out a format – I would ask questions, the guests would answer, as if in conversation – and after a few trial runs I had it down pat. Unable to afford celebrity bookers, we relied on two
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