I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [105]
Out went Hits of Their Day and in came a far more cerebral show. I envisaged it as a kind of ‘idea melting pot’, challenging but easily digestible for an audience of housewives and unemployed males. It was, I hoped, tonally equidistant between Nigel Pinsent’s In-Depth and Wally Banter’s Junk Box.252
I devised the name ‘Alan’s Show’ as I felt that was the best name for the show. I was absolutely adamant that that’s what the show should be called because I didn’t feel that other names were as good as that one. I was fully prepared to walk if they didn’t cede to my demand. But, after a conversation with effete station controller Frank Shears, I agreed that it should not be called ‘Alan’s Show’. As Frank pointed out, the name of the show would appear on a coffee mug and people might subconsciously think of me, Alan Partridge, as some kind of ‘mug’.
Instead, I needed to devise a new name. I locked myself in my study – and like a scene from a US movie – I put on a sweatshirt and walked around bouncing a tennis ball against a wall as I thought out loud.253 I emerged three days later, having broken a window, an angle-poise lamp and a swivel chair, still no closer to a new name.
Then a brainwave! I thought back to a time of my life when I was at my most productive. When was I oozing with ideas? In what circumstances was I at my most fecund? I’d simply identify when I was at my best and then try to recreate that environment as faithfully as possible.
Which is how I came to spend a long weekend in the Aylsham Travel Tavern, dining each morning from the breakfast buffet and speaking into a Dictaphone while my assistant wrote down everything I said, like a human back-up drive.
We spent four days in that room together (not in an intimate way – she slept in the bathroom) until, exhausted and bleary eyed, we emerged. We (I) had devised a name that had gravitas, catchy alliteration, and was time-specific.
The second of these features was the most crucial. I love alliteration. I love, love, love it. Alliteration just makes everything sound fantastic. I genuinely can’t think of anything with matching initials that I don’t like: Green Goddess, Hemel Hempstead, Bum Bags, Monster Mash, Krispy Kreme, Dirty Dozen, Peter Purves, Est Est Est, the SS,254 World Wide Web, Clear Cache.
My show would combine all that was good about its alliterative brothers listed above. It was to be called ‘Daily Daytime Debate’. And as far as I was concerned that was absolutely final. I’d changed it once and I was not going to change it again.
In the end, it was changed to ‘Mid-Morning Matters’, which was a good name because it did ‘matter’255 and, running from 10am to 2pm, occupied a time that everyone would agree was known as ‘mid-morning’.
I decided the show would combine music and chat, which effectively meant transplanting Norfolk Nights into a new daytime slot. This was reflected in a more housewife-friendly tone of chat, subsequently described by one North Norfolk blogger256 as ‘like a feral Lorraine Kelly’ which I quite liked. Similarly, the mood of the music necessarily shifted from ‘I love you’ to ‘Let’s get things done’.257
Having completely bought in to Gordale’s efficiency savings, I understood that there wasn’t much in the pot to spend on marketing. Instead, I dug into my savings and had Prontaprint258 make 2,500 flyers which I left in piles on the tables of Starbucks and Café Nero.
Then I began to broadcast.
‘This is digital radio. Repeat: this is digital radio. Do you read me, North Norfolk? Do you read me?’
‘Alan, they read you,’ said a voice in my cans.
‘Prepare your psyche for a new listening experience. Prepare for Alan’s Show …’
‘It’s not called Alan’s Show.’
‘… for Alan’s new show: Mid-Morning Matters. It’s 10 o’clock in the morning – or is it? We want