From
the moment that the movie began with every-bodies favourite awkward
sitcom character driving to work and singing aloud, I knew I was about
to see one of the funniest films of the last few years. Despite
how identical that set-up is however, I'm sadly not talking about
David Brent: Life On The Road but
rather the vastly superior spin-off movie Alan Partridge:
Alpha Papa. The Office
may well be my favourite show of
all time and so I was nervous when Gervais announced that Brent was
going to be the star of his own film. Not least of all because it
seems that the more I see of Gervais, a man I once considered to be
an Emperor of comedy, the more I begin to wonder about the fleshy pink
colour of his flabby new clothes. The Simpsons creator
Matt Groening once described Gervais as being “the new Woody
Allen”. But you know.. as much as that'd be nice, I'm not
sure it's actually true. Allen is the writer/director of such
classics as
Annie Hall and
Manhattan, and Gervais is the man
behind some not-so-classics as The Invention Of Lying and
The Special Correspondents. The
only way that Groening's Allen comparison could be even remotely
accurate would be if he was actually referring to an as yet
undisclosed allegation regarding Gervais fucking private life.
