Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1058 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-10-20
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ah-Ha! In 1995 Norwich's most famous son Alan Partridge made the transition from radio to TV with Knowing Me, Knowing You, a chat-show so wholly misunderstood that one clever-clog TV critic described it as "moribund". By way of rebuttal, just consider Alan's parade of fantastic guests, including a hypnotist who persuades Alan that he's an owl; a US pop diva with whom Alan shares a memorable Abba duet that happens to be in all the wrong keys for him; raunchy male dance-act Hot Pants; Cirque des Clowns, whose extreme violence upsets Alan; and, most exciting of all, Roger Moore (via mobile phone from a traffic jam on the Chiswick roundabout).

Steve Coogan's creation fell on hard times later--as chronicled in the magnificent I'm Alan Partridge Series 1 and Series 2--but here he's revelling in his prime-time exposure with no thought of becoming "clinically sad" or gorging on Toblerone bars. Co-writers Armando Iannucci and Patrick Marber lovingly recreate everything that's fake and contrived about the whole chat-show genre: the shameless plugging, the recalcitrant celebs, the novelty acts and, most of all, the insufferably smug host oblivious to his own tediousness. Coogan's regular guests are ably played by some faces familiar from The Day Today: Rebecca Front, Doon MacKichan, David Schneider and Patrick Marber himself. Other game guest stars are John Thomson (as a naval officer also called Alan Partridge) and Minnie Driver (as a transsexual agony aunt), not forgetting Steve Brown as disconcertingly gay music director Glen Ponder.

The high-water mark of Alan's career arrived with his Christmas special Knowing Me, Knowing Yule in which his own living room was lovingly recreated at Television Centre. Unfortunately, and despite the presence of Mick Hucknall, the new Chief Commissioning Editor of BBC TV, Tony Hayers, is deeply unimpressed with the show and gets punched in the face by Alan, who, it turns out, is handy with a turkey. On that bombshell, Alan's career took a downward turn.

On the DVD: Knowing Me, Knowing You is a two-disc set including all six episodes and the Christmas special. There's a group commentary throughout with contributions from Armando Iannucci plus Patrick Marber, Rebecca Front, Steve Brown and Dave Schneider speaking in and out of character. Other extras include the original pilot show, Alan on Comic Relief, Alan's rural rambles, his TV trailers, plus stills and cast biographies. --Mark Walker

Special Features
Cast & Writers Commentaries
Alan Aid (Alan's live "injects" from Comic Relief '95)
Ruralan (Alan Partridge's Country Ramble)
Originalan (untransmitted test footage)
Original Trails
Still Alan (Photo Gallery)
Biographicalan (cast & crew biographies)
As Well As Alan (cast & crew credits)

Synopsis
Norwich's king of chat Alan Partridge stars in these six episodes from the classic BBC TV comedy. Includes the festive special KNOWING ME, KNOWING YULE, get it

Customer Reviews

Ah-Ha! The original and still the best!
Let me just say right now that I agree with a viewer from Somerset... brilliant. I would have rated it 6 stars, but Amazon will only allow 5.
Perfect comedy, perfect timing. You will not regret buying 'Knowing Me, Knowing You With Alan Partridge' or 'KMKYWAP' for short, or simply, 'The Alan Partridge Show'.

Well worth the asking price.

average enough
Knowing me,knowing you first aired in 1994 to critical acclaim and for years since people have told me that i needed to check it out so when i saw it in a shop for 7 notes i danced to the counter and got it and watched with an eager twitch,i wasnt blown away.
It isnt that it has aged,far from it,its just that when compared to things like the office and curb your enthuasism which have come after then this seems a little bit one dimensional.
Steve coogan plays the talk show host who has talent,but lets himself ruin what appears to be a good interview with smugness,vanity,his own beliefs show up in what should be a neutral interview and his desire to oversell himself and with his dodgy product placing,it all comes undone.
It is parody but wears itself down every now and then,coogan is exceptional and of course he would need to be to make this work but some of his guests who are other comics who reappear time and time again in different roles means that this does feel a bit lazy.
I wasnt blown away,i didnt laugh my bap off but i liked it,i can do no more.

Oblivious Alan
Alan Partridge is considerably more crass and socially unaware than any real host you will find on tv. That's what makes Knowing Me Knowing You extremely funny. Partridge is a very poor interviewer - discourteous, narrow-minded and dour are words that spring to mind. There are many horrific (read hilarious) moments during his painful gem of a series and the fictional guests are just the right mix of famous, infamous, quirky and banal. These extra characters are played well by a reliable and talented stable of Coogan chums, such as David Schneider, Patrick Marber and Rebecca Front. AP slaps all of them down in some way and a few of them hit him gamely back with barbed comments that at times have the audience squirming. I think that some of the studio spectators believed KMKY to be a genuine show, as i understand that some home viewers complained to the BBC after the original airing, convinced of the same thing. One can only imagine what these people thought of the scene where Alan accidentally kills one of his guests.

I particularly liked the episode that was set in Paris. Co-fronting it was a chic and professional Parisienne doomed to suffer quite shameless Frog-bashing from Alan. At the end of that episode, after he'd insulted the French to the point of no return, AP glibly announced that he hoped Britain and France would be just a little closer because of his ground-breaking show.

The Yule one showed AP managing to offend both Christians and Jews, pyrotechnicians, his disabled guests,his gay co-presenters and patients in the local children's hospital. The episode resolved a few things touched on in the earlier programmes, especially AP's boasting of the mega bucks spent on his tacky studio sets in comparison to the need for dialysis machines. Special guest on that show (To Alan, because he wanted to schmooze) is Tony Hayers (Schneider), the commissioning editor for BBC tv. Hayers finally pulls the plug on the expensive sets, the product placement and lastly, on Alan's career. This cringey crescendo provides the set up for the Patridge/Hayers animosity and sensitivity in the next series.

I didn't think much of the "extras" of this DVD but then I never buy DVD's for anything other than the movies/programmes themselves. This is a 5 star series and Alan Patridge is one of the great, comic monsters.