Speaking exclusively to FUBAR Radio’s ‘A Badge of Friendship’, legendary comedy writer, Armando Iannucci told us what his greatest creation, Alan Partridge, likes to listen to on the radio. The fictional disc jockey is famous for his obscure musical taste but Armando argued, such is the cycle of fashion, Partridge’s choices are probably back in favour now.
“It’s funny because things come round and the stuff that Alan would have chosen, that would have been determined as naff ten years ago, actually seemed quite a good selection for ‘Alpha Papa’.”
Armando spoke about the thought process that went into choosing the music for Alan Partridge. “I suppose it started with our own musical tastes. Neither me or Steve are the world’s coolest people musically. I think Alan (Partridge) would say your show isn’t for the likes of him. He’d call you, the young folk. Alan is a little bit older, he’s always been ten years older than us, as we hit 50, he’s about to hit 60 and I think he has belief that middle of the road taste is actually classy and something to be proud of, so that was our starting point.”
‘Alpha Papa’ came out in 2013 and Armando was shocked that the film had such worldwide acclaim. “I’m always surprised that something we feel very close to and that we feel is very British, gets an audience abroad. We don’t write it for an international audience, you write it for yourself and how people you know would identify with. That’s fundamentally what you do and you can’t really out think or predict what other people are going to make of it.”
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