Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

Steve Coogan's super-naff Norfolk DJ gets a toe-curlingly funny big-screen outing

Steve Coogan's super-naff Norfolk DJ gets a toe-curlingly funny big-screen outing.

Coogan's TV comic creation Alan Partridge makes a great transition to feature-length format and he's as cringe-inducingly hopeless, hapless and tragically naff as ever.

The film, however, gives him the chance to be a hero when a sacked DJ (Colm Meaney) at North Norfolk Digital takes a dozen of the radio station's staff hostage at gunpoint and asks for 'trusted' colleague Alan to be his mediator with the police.

As the siege unfolds, Alan's inept efforts to turn the situation to his own advantage produces moments of exquisite comedy and the climax - a cack-handed standoff on Cromer pier following a car chase at a crawl in the Radio Norwich roadshow van - is Partridge perfection.