The thing is, I love the character of Alan Partridge so much it may well be that, when it came to this film, I left my critical faculties outside the screening room, possibly somewhere along Wardour Street. If you see them, might you return them? I would hate them to fall into the wrong hands, or be sold to the highest bidder. Anthony Lane of the New Yorker, for example, has always been after my critical faculties and the late film critic Roger Ebert was once quoted as saying he’d pay anything for them; anything. Luckily, he was American, and they would never be allowed to leave the country, but you see what I’m saying? Why it’s important I get them back?
Anyway, Alan Partridge and, OK, if I were in possession of my critical faculties, I might say Alpha Papa is a 30-minute TV show stretched out to 90 minutes but, because I’m not, I can make like I didn’t notice, not that I’d have cared in any case.
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