I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [107]
The joke he was telling when I walked in was an absolute groin-wrecker (is that a phrase?). But it was also wholly unsuitable for publication, touching as it did on the rather delicate subjects of race, sexuality and Phil Shepherd’s mum. Me and the guys took it in the spirit in which it was intended, but if the PC Brigade saw it in print they’d have an absolute eppy. The second and third gags were just about fine, I thought, but HarperCollins disagreed so I can’t share them with you. Let’s just say that what I regarded as gentle joshing of the opposite sex, they regarded as plain hateful to women. Ditto a handful of Jew jokes. Ah well.
But petty questions of taste and decency aside, the point is that me and Denton hit it off large-time. We were like Siamese twins separated at birth by a combination of surgery and adoption. We both enjoyed a drop of real ale. We both had the same views on artificial insemination. And we were both absolute naturals at that thing where you lean on the barstool in a way that means you’re sitting and standing at the same time.
More than anything else, though, we were just funny guys. As I drove home that night I thought my brain was going to short circuit. Had I been a robot,261 I think it probably would have done. What the hell had just happened back there? Who was this guy? It was back at Chez Partridge later on as I drank a pint of tap water in just three gulps (a new PB) that it occurred to me. Why not invite Denton to become part of Mid-Morning Matters on North Norfolk Digital?262
Of course! It was so obvious. Comedy was the only thing the show hadn’t nailed. Everything else was there by the bucket-load – music, guests, sound effects. We had a whole phalanx of killer features too: Alan Describes Art, A Partridge in a Pun Tree, Creed Crunch, Word Scramble, Gender Thrash.
Yet every night in bed, there was a nagging doubt in my mind. I’d lie there absent-mindedly tossing my ball bag from one hand to the other, and I knew something was missing. What we were lacking was the truly big laughs found on, say, Bedtime with Branning or the aforementioned Wally Banter’s Junk Box.
Not that it was my fault. I was forever bringing a wry smile to my listener’s ears, but there was only so far I could go. As one of the most trusted voices in Norfolk,263 I had a responsibility to be taken seriously. It wouldn’t do to have spent the entire show speaking like a quacking duck (which admittedly would be very funny) if I then had to read out an urgent newsflash about a dirty bomb going off in Wisbech.
So that was where Denton would come in. Not specifically for the quacking (in fact, least of all for the quacking – animal noises were a glaring weakness of his), but just to be the person whose sole job it was to bring the laughter. But my thinking was even bolder than that. I wasn’t envisaging that Denton would come and go like a weather girl or a traffic and travel person. Instead he would be by my side throughout, free to lob in a gag at literally any time.264 It would bring a real freshness to the show to have this unique comic mind chucking in dry comments the second they popped into his head.265 And a bonus: thanks to (a) the webcam and (b) his striking resemblance to Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose, even the deaf could enjoy him.
Not that I was talking about a co-host. That would be taking it way, way, way, way, way, way, way too far. I’d already betrayed the trust of my digital devotees by introducing a sidekick at all. To go any further would have been insane. I like risk, but I’m not a dick. To make that point crystal clear I decided to enshrine his role in his on-air nickname, Sidekick Simon. His job would be to enhance the show, not to share it. Never to share it. Not ever. No, that wasn’t going to happen, pal.
He would be the polish to my car, the buff to my shoe, the sun cream to my back. Just to be certain I was making the right decision, I consulted my assistant. She