‘You can trace a lot of the jokes back to Noel Edmonds’: An oral history of Knowing Me, Knowing Yule at 30
To mark the special Alan Partridge episode turning 30, Simon Bland chats to Armando Iannucci, Patrick Marber, Rebecca Front and more about the making of a Christmas classic
As far as British TV Christmas specials go, there are few more chaotic or quotable than 1995’s Knowing Me, Knowing Yule. As Alan Partridge’s first (and so far only) foray into light festive entertainment, to say things didn’t go as planned would be an understatement bigger than Santa’s sleigh or a Rover 800 Vitesse.
Penned by star Steve Coogan, producer Armando Iannucci and writer/star Patrick Marber, Partridge’s seasonal one-off acted as the cherry on top of the character’s first prime-time BBC chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You. Despite ending that series on the bombshell of Partridge shooting a guest on live TV, he somehow convinced the Beeb to let him mark the holiday season in his own unique way. Not only that but with BBC boss Tony Hayers (David Schneider) in attendance, he already had his eye on delivering more quality chat in a potential second series. Naturally, it didn’t take long for things to descend into Christmassy calamity.
As the show celebrates its 30th anniversary, Iannucci and Marber, along with stars Rebecca Front, Kevin Eldon, and David Schneider, and director Dominic Brigstocke, welcome us all back into their mock-up replica of Alan’s house to relive the wild experience of making a Brit Christmas classic.
Even though he shot a guest on live telly, it’s not long before Alan’s back on the box for a festive special set in a mock-up replica of his own Norfolk home.
Patrick Marber (writer, played Gordon Heron): I have very happy thoughts about [Knowing Me, Knowing Yule]. It was made in the context of Knowing me, Knowing You having already gone out and people liking it so to be asked to do a Christmas special by the BBC in those days was a really big deal. It was an acknowledgement that people might want to watch a bit of Alan at Christmas. We approached it with great joy.
Armando Iannucci (writer, producer): Unfortunately, my memory of it is it being a hard week because I had a terrible flu, I just felt awful. It was quite intense and because we’re all idiots and tend to leave everything to the last minute, we were still writing and shaping it in the week leading up to the recording. Add to that me sneezing, spluttering and wanting to go to bed.
Dominic Brigstocke (director): Nobody knew when we were making the first series that there would be anything else because we didn’t know whether it’d be a success or a disaster. Alan killed a guest at the end of the last show because it was a great way to end the series. He was led off by the police.
Iannucci: I’m sure the official line was that [the shooting] was still under investigation and that “it wouldn’t be appropriate to speculate or comment at this particular time. Our thoughts are with the family.”
Rebecca Front (played Mary the Bell Ringer): I feel as though we all always knew Partridge was going to have this kind of half life, like a nasty dose of radiation. It was obviously such a well-rounded, brilliant character that it would’ve been remiss of Steve and everybody not to take it further.
Marber: We never thought [killing a guest] would be enough to get rid of him. He was the golden goose. We weren’t going to kill him off. We saw it as an interesting situation for him to be able to get out of – or try to get out of – but we weren’t concerned with logic in those days.
Iannucci: We thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if he just bashed Tony Hayers (David Schneider) with a turkey on his fist and got told he’d never work in entertainment television ever again?” We thought that’d be a good cliffhanger to end on. What excited us about it is that we could do the full Christmas extravaganza with bell ringers and all that.
Taking place in real-time, Alan welcomes all to his Christmas party, including a Rover-Dealership-owner-turned-Santa-Claus, bawdy celebrity chef Fanny Thomas, Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall and most important of all, new BBC boss Tony Hayers – the guy who holds the key to a second series…
David Schneider (played Tony Hayers): I always tended to play the low status characters and here I was as Tony. I was high status and really enjoyed that. We knew Partridge was in trouble and wanted a second series so it made sense for him to try and invite the head of BBC on.
Brigstocke: Do you know how much rehearsal we had? None. We walked it through once but ran out of time. The script came off the photocopier still warm. It was possibly the most extraordinary experience I’ve had in 40 years of making television. The fact we recorded anything on that day is itself a miracle. The evening before, I was being walked around Soho Square by the line producer as she tried to calm me down.
Marber: It was fairly evident that Alan should cook a turkey. We came up with Kevin Eldon’s part [Fanny Thomas]. TV chefs were becoming sort of a thing in the Nineties so that made sense. Then it made perfect sense that Alan should attack a man in a wheelchair [Gordon Heron] with a turkey on his fist. Of course, that’s what should happen.
Kevin Eldon (played Fanny Thomas): Fanny arrived pretty intact. A sassy Northern drag act with an obsession with filthy innuendo. There are not a lot of ways you can go with that. Only in one fabulous direction so that was the road I bowled down. Lily Savage was pretty big then and I remember thinking to myself, difficult though it might be, try and steer clear of her because she had her own space and I wanted to try and avoid encroaching on that as much as possible.
Iannucci: I’ve a funny feeling Patrick joined us a little later in the writing process and I was eternally grateful for him. He started firing off lines that ended up in the script. “Right, we’re in a full scale replica of my house. It’s about the size of an average sized Chinese restaurant.”
Marber: We thought of Perry Como Christmas specials. They were always in a mock-up house. That seemed very obvious to us. We recorded in front of a live studio audience so you wanted a set that was immediately festive. Alan’s house, which no one had ever seen before, felt like a really good place to locate it.
Iannucci: I think Steve saw a Noel Edmonds Christmas special where it was all coming from his house. A lot of these things you can trace back to Noel Edmonds.
Brigstocke: Everything Armando and Steve do has this electric energy because Steve doesn’t necessarily know his lines. He’d sometimes jump to another bit of the script and all the other actors had to go “Which bit are we doing now?” What Steve did was remarkable. He kept going as Alan. I called him Alan on set. He was absolutely spot-on. He hit his mark every time. We basically recorded it in one go without a rehearsal.
Schneider: It was always evolving. There was a script that you knew – but there was always room to play.
Iannucci: This sounds like we approached it in quite an intellectually rigorous manner and I don’t think we did. We thought “What would Alan have on his Christmas special? He’ll have the world’s largest Christmas cracker.” It was playing on that aspect of live television, just the other side of Noel’s House Party.
Naturally, it doesn’t take long for Alan to lose control, with unruly, God-obsessed guests (“God is a… gas,” says Alan), a giant broken Christmas cracker and a saucy chef who knows exactly how to push his buttons…
Eldon: There was a lot of improv. It’s a big part of how Armando and Steve worked; run a rough scene, try different lines… It gave us all a great sense of collaboration.
Iannucci: That’s why we introduced things like “What if Rebecca didn’t play a guest who comes on to be interviewed?” She’s meant to be a background [character] and then gets involved.
Front: The idea of playing a bell ringer just struck me as funny, as did the idea of having Partridge, who’s clearly all about himself, stuck with this woman who really wants to talk about her Lord and Saviour. She’s unpredictable and a bit dangerous. I thought it was terribly funny when Alan suddenly looks at his producer and says “How did this happen?” It’s sort of all the chaos of all the other Knowing Me, Knowing You’s but on steroids.
Schneider: The challenge for me was trying to stay in character. The stuff with Alan asking Mary “Are you a virgin?” Rebecca’s response is so truthful and honest. I remember that moment when Kevin does an innuendo and Partridge points out that it’s not even an innuendo. It made you want to raise your game – but it was a struggle not to corpse.
Front: At the time, I was in rehearsals for a Sondheim musical in the West End. There’s a moment where Steve says something like “Can you eat more quietly?” That was because I’d come straight from rehearsal and I was really hungry. There were all these biscuits around and I was just trying to get some food in me. Steve turned it into something very funny.
Eldon: I remember we had to find a catchphrase for Fanny. It had to be saucy and rude. I think we were all subconsciously thinking “Carry on”. Steve came up with “Oooh, pardon!” I was quite annoyed because I really wanted to come up with Fanny’s catchphrase myself but as soon as I heard it I thought, “Oh bugger, that’s just right.” It’s simple and saucy but at the same time, intentionally rubbish which is the added beauty of it. We all had a go at thinking up Fanny’s innuendos. It was a competition to see who could come up with the best filth.
Schneider: I think that’s Kevin’s most brilliant comic performance ever. I still chuckle when I remember Alan saying “I want Fanny.”
Marber: Kevin is brilliant. He’s both likable and incredibly annoying and absolutely a character that’d infuriate Alan because he goes a bit further than Alan likes. Alan’s prudishness is very observable in that episode.
Eldon: It was fun because Partridge and Fanny don’t like each other personally or professionally and have to pretend to get on. It was nice playing at hiding that dislike under superficial showbiz bonhomie and then finally letting it slip and showing what they really thought of each other.
Iannucci: Alan’s not very good with people who are their own act. He’d rather deal with people he can fire questions at and he doesn’t like anyone who actually gets a bit of the limelight that he’s not in.
Eldon: I think I was concerned about getting the wig off neatly when Fanny grabs Partridge. It needed to be quick and sharp. It was a big wig too. I was offering it saucers of milk when I wasn’t wearing it. I remember clocking Steve doing Partridge’s look of fear, discomfort and embarrassment when I grabbed him and thinking “‘that is VERY funny”.
After a brief glimpse at Alan’s Christmas routine in Norwich (foreshadowing what was to come in “I’m Alan Partridge”), things culminate with Alan punching BBC boss Tony Hayers with his turkey-covered fist, ruining his chances at a second series and stopping his mainstream chat show career in its tracks.
Schneider: I couldn’t possibly say which BBC boss [Tony Hayers] was based on. At that point, there was a shift from programme makers at the BBC being in charge, to managers being brought in to manage things. That’s who Tony Hayers was. Good at PR but you wouldn’t want to go on a walking holiday with him.
Iannucci: We shot Alan’s “Christmas in Norwich” where he’s allowed into an electronics store that no longer exists. They bring the shutters down half way and he’s allowed to sneak in. In a lot of that stuff where he goes around pushing CD players, he was with a genuine employee. It was Steve as Alan improvising, asking some poor guy questions and saying “nice action”.
Schneider: To this day, me and my friends love anything you can say “nice action” to.
Brigstocke: Being Steve and Armando, nothing was planned. We just went to Norwich and Steve did stuff. We went to the Children’s hospital and were let in. They were real ill kids.
Iannucci: That’s right. I mean, they weren’t fatally ill – but their parents and the staff were happy to do all that.
Schneider: Every character I played [In Knowing Me, Knowing You] looked Jewish but it was never mentioned. With Tony, there was this little exchange – “Knowing me Alan Partridge, Jew-liker”. At that time, there wasn’t much of that out there so it felt great [to acknowledge it] and see how Alan suffered at Christmas trying to say the right thing about the crucifixion and getting himself into hot water. He doesn’t want to open that door, especially not with the head of the BBC. It was very rewarding for me, personally. It prompted me to go “It’s fine to be Jewish” and explore it more in my comedy.
Brigstocke: Those minutes leading up to the punch are extraordinary. He asks Tony, “Is there something I could do that would change your mind [about getting a second series]?” He says no and it’s that moment where he thinks about it before he does it. You get Alan’s complete despair. That’s comedy genius.
Schneider: I can’t say we had any idea at the time that it’d be such a pivotal moment. It was just a funny thing to do because everyone wants to wallop the commissioning editor but no one has the guts. We didn’t hold back.
Marber: Steve knew Mick Hucknall and he was an Alan fan. We also thought he’d be great on a Christmas special. He was fantastic.
Iannucci: It came out the way we’d all hoped it would, which is just this mayhem. Alan with a bird on his fist while Mick Hucknall was singing. It’s the first time we had a real-life celebrity [in Alan’s world] because of course, Roger Moore never made it.
Brigstocke: When he walks on thinking “I don’t know what’s going on here” that’s genuine because we hadn’t rehearsed it. He’s literally walking onto a set with Steve crying in the corner, then he has to sing. It’s as spontaneous as it looks.
Iannucci: He played a blinder. He’s glancing around to see what the hell’s going on. In his head, he’s going “Is this good for my career?” He’s on this national television show at Christmas with choir children and there’s been violence. He did really well.
Over the years, Alan’s Christmas debacle has become a familiar part of fans’ festive routines…
Front: I think it has withstood the test of time, partly because Alan is so inept at doing something Christmassy. Things like the Santa Rover Dealership gag. I can’t imagine seeing that in another Christmas special. The chaos and violence towards his guests just builds.
Brigstocke: I did think it was quite special at the time. It was extremely ambitious and remarkable that we got away with it. There was a bit of magic that day because without the good luck we had, there wouldn’t have been a show.
Schneider: It’s satirising another nostalgic thing, which is Noel’s House Party and those types of shows that people ridiculed but watched in their millions and sort of miss. You’d watch them with your family on Christmas day and I think this is sort of associated with that. It’s the cool kids’ nostalgia.
Eldon: Certain Christmas programmes and films are a yearly go-to for lots of people, [and if fans have returned to this], that’s amazing. Comedy is a balm. It does good to our brains and bodies. I had a great time doing it and I’m delighted people still enjoy it.
Marber: To make something 30 years ago that people still like is amazing. It’s a really nice feeling. To put something out into the world that people still laugh at is a lovely thing.
Iannucci: The thing I’m probably most proud of is that these shows are still being watched. If people are still getting laughs out of them then I’m not complaining at all. I’d rather that than tell someone I was involved in Alan Partridge and they go “Who’s that?”
‘Knowing Me, Knowing Yule’ is available on Now TV and Sky. Kevin Eldon’s podcast ‘Kevin Eldon’s Speakers’ is available here.
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