MMM S01E01: Focus On Cycling

ALAN

You're listening to Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge. Today we're talking condiments; you're stuck on a desert island, you're allowed one condiment, which is it to be? John in Sprouston?

CALLER: JOHN

Ketchup.

ALAN

Harry in Bodham?

CALLER: HARRY

Mustard.

ALAN

Kev in Norwich? 

CALLER: KEV

Gravy. 

ALAN

That's not a condiment, it's a hot sauce.

CALLER: KEV

Bisto then.

ALAN

That's a brand of gravy. 

CALLER: KEV

Branston Pickle then. 

ALAN

And that's a relish. It's eight minutes to twelve, in less than one hour-

CALLER: KEV [still on the line]

...Mustard... 

ALAN [disconnecting KEV]

-myself and Sidekick Simon-

SIMON

Man the barricades! 

ALAN

-will come face to face with one of the most beautiful women in the world.

SIMON

Anthea Turner.

ALAN

Anthea "The Body" Turner!

SIMON

You like her do you then, Alan?

ALAN

What man doesn't? Seriously, what man doesn't? 

SIMON

Oh no, hardly any.

ALAN

Exactly! She-

SIMON [interjecting] 

Stevie Wonder!

ALAN [laughing]

Or Ray Charles! 

SIMON

Any blind man. 

ALAN

Yeah. She is the Ford Escort Cabriolet of middle aged women. Sleek, petite, a little bit racy.

SIMON

Nought percent finance available!

ALAN [laughing]

Doesn't even make sense! But it's still funny, still surreally funny! Which is why we booked you, why we booked you.

SIMON

...Power steering...

ALAN

By the way, please don't text in. The woman slash car thing is exclusively for myself and Sidekick Simon. We're not- we're just doing that... what's that word you used? 

SIMON

Riffing.

ALAN

We're riffing, we're jamming. 

SIMON

Well, riffing. 

ALAN

I've got to say, it's always like this isn't it?

SIMON

It is, yes!

ALAN

We had brunch-

SIMON [interjecting]

Well, I had lunch! 

ALAN

-on Sunday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you had lunch. Because I turned up at about half past eleven...

SIMON

Yeah, and then I pitched up about ten past twelve.

ALAN

He pitched up about ten past twelve, like blummin'... rolls in like Lord... 

SIMON

Vader?

ALAN 

Lucan. And what did you order? 

SIMON

I had the Thai fish cakes- 

ALAN 

Yeah, that's right.

SIMON

...and you sat there stuffing yourself with...

ALAN [interrupting]

No, no, no, no, no, don't tell me what I had! I had the... I had... I had... 

[Seventeen seconds of dead air while Alan tries to recall his meal]

ALAN [quietly]

I can't remember. You're listening to North Norfolk Digital with Alan Partridge. [pause] No, it's gone.

SIMON

You alright, Alan?

ALAN

Yep.

SIMON

I thought I'd lost you there! Away with the fairies! 

ALAN

Hey, there's only one fairy in here!

SIMON

Yeah, I'm looking right at him! 

ALAN

Hey, you cheeky tit! This is great banter! It really is! So anyway, there we were having lunch... brunch... what do you call lunch and brunch when they're combined? 

SIMON

Blunch? Is it a blunch?

ALAN [laughing]

That's excellent! Really good.

SIMON

And I'd got the supplements, hadn't I?

ALAN

We'd spread the supplements out on the coffee table, and I think we had a bit of a tussle over the Motoring section.

SIMON

Ooh, we did a bit. We locked horns!

ALAN

We grappled!

SIMON

We did gra- we wrestled!

ALAN

We didn't wrestle! But you gave me a bag of crisps, didn't you? Cheesy... cheesy onion... cheese and onion.

SIMON

Cheese and onion.

ALAN

Now, normally, when I open a packet of crisps, I open them at the top. But Simon showed me a technique whereby you splice the packet down the side, lay it flat and share the contents. 

SIMON

Hippie style. 

ALAN

Hippie style! And I think in all seriousness, it was at that point that I realised that here was a guy who's prepared to push the envelope.

SIMON

Cheers. 

ALAN

Yeah. I'd love to see you open an envelope, you'd probably do it in a very unconventional way!

SIMON

OK, I've come up with a list, a top ten list of things not to say to a customs officer...

ALAN [interrupting]

Time for a travel update with Chris Gifford. Kippers! That's what I had.

JINGLE [car horns, urgent male voice] 

Traffic and Travel.

[cut to black]

ALAN

You're listening to North Norfolk Digital. It's time to...

JINGLE [rapid, urgent synth chords, sultry female voice] 

Focus on...

ALAN

...Cycling. 

ALAN

I am in the studio with Jim Jones.

JIM [astride an exercise bike]

Hi.

ALAN

Hello. Just to clear something up, you're not the Jim Jones who led a mass suicide in the Jonestown massacre by feeding his followers poisoned broth? 

JIM

Of course not! 

ALAN

Glad to hear it. Well, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? Along with your nine hundred followers... Do you know that's the population of a village like Hickling? It's an awful thought, isn't it? Imagine seeing the streets of Hickling littered with dead corpses. Doesn't bear thinking about! It'd be doubly shocking, because the town won Best Kept Town in Norfolk for three years on the trot. Do you ever have dark thoughts?

JIM

No, not really. 

ALAN

If you're tuning in to us without the aid of visual internet, let me fill you in. Jim is astride a static exercise cycle. [to JIM] Why?

JIM [starting to pedal, the bike makes a loud noise]

Well, I'm running a campaign called On Your Bike. It's about getting young kids out and on to cycle-

ALAN

Can you stop cycling now? The noise- I didn't realise you were going to make that noise, it's a bit distracting.

[awkward pause as the bike winds down]

ALAN

You're listening to North Norfolk Digital, Norfolk's best mu- North Norfolk's best music mix. If you are watching the internet from a third world country, perhaps you're unfamiliar with bikes, cycling is a form of wheeled transportation whereby the legs are used as pistons to propel the cyclist forward.

JIM

Exactly.

ALAN

Sounds complicated.

JIM

It's not, this campaign's bang-on simple. Basically, we're trying to empower kids... 

ALAN

I'm going to interrupt you there, Jim. I've just got an email, and it says that in the Jonestown massacre, it wasn't soup he made them drink, it was actually poisoned Kool-Aid. So just to reiterate, the fluid administered by the Reverend Jim Jones in the Jonestown massacre in Guyana in 1978 to just under one thousand innocent men, women and children was pop, not broth. So that's... popnotbroth. [gestures to JIM]

JIM [nonplussed]

So this campaign's about helping kids that are a wee bit overweight shed a few pounds, you see-

ALAN

Ever met a child the size of an ox? 

JIM [taken aback]

Pardon?! 

ALAN

The reason I mention it is, I once knew a man who was the size of an ox but with the mind of a child.

He was a very affable chap, helped me move house. Didn't like loud noises, but my goodness he could eat! 

[JIM is lost, doesn't know how to respond to that]

ALAN
There's a very good email here, it says, is there a case to put overweight kids in their own, inverted commas, fat schools? You could house them in dormitories, lock them in, then push pieces of Ryvita smothered in Philadelphia Light under the doors. This way, they would become educated and thin. It's a little extreme, but you can't fault his logic.

JIM

This is about educating kids into being fit, it's not about faddy diets! I spend time with these kids, and I end up learning from them! 

ALAN

Really?

JIM

I end up relating to them as adults.

ALAN

Right.

JIM

You spend time alone with these children, you end up being a big kid yourself.

ALAN

You've been cleared to work with children?

JIM

Absolutely!

ALAN

Okay.

JIM

...That's the reason why I took them on a long cycle. We cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats, a group of 11 to 12-year-olds.

ALAN

I'm planning on doing the very same journey myself next year! 

JIM

You're going from Land's End to John O'Groats on a bicycle? 

ALAN

No, in a Toyota Avensis.

JIM

Who's sponsoring you? 

ALAN

No-one. It's just one of the great UK drives, along with clockwise and anticlockwise around the M25 in the same day, which I did manage last year when I had a day to kill. I was dismissed from jury service, they wanted an ethnic balance, and I was the fall guy! So yeah, it was just a Japanese saloon car, me and the very best of Deacon Blue. 

JIM

Did you enjoy yourself?

ALAN

I'm asking the questions! 

JIM

Great, Alan! Fine. Ask away. 

ALAN

I will... I'll ask you in a... [reaching for a sheet of paper] ...in a second. This is North Norfolk Digital, sustaining and maintaining our core listenership in an increasingly fragmented marketplace. 

JINGLE [female chorus]

North Norfolk... 

ALAN [stopping the JINGLE]

I've just realised I read that from an internal memo. It wasn't for you to hear. Sorry. Sorry.

JINGLE [female chorus]

North Norfolk... Digital!

[ALAN winces at his mistake as the JINGLE plays]

ALAN

If you've just joined us, I'm Alan Partridge, I'm chatting with Jim Jones. Not the evil one, this one's clean as a whistle! [to JIM] And that's all official, right?

JIM

Yep. We get checked twice a year.

ALAN

I should think so, too. So all the boxes ticked and you're on the register? The good one, the good one.

WHO

Yeah.

ALAN

Great. Sorry to have to broach that subject, but it's an awful business, but we've had some cracking phone-ins about it. But it is an ongoing problem, especially round these parts, if you get my drift. 

JIM

What, in the radio station?

ALAN

No, no, no, he's gone! Anyway, Anthea Turner coming up in half an hour. Hope she didn't hear that!

Jim Jones, in the meantime, I have a little surprise for you, it's this award for services to the larger child. It's an ALHA, Alan's Local Hero Award. It's not engraved, you do that yourself, put what you like. For those of you who don't have the webcam, it's a mock-brass hand doing that. 

[ALAN makes the 'Okay' gesture to the webcam]

ALAN

So you can take that, show it to the kids. Actually, don't, just take it straight home. Do they ever get on your nerves, being surrounded by all those puffing, wheezing kids?

JIM

Oh, well, actually, these kids are pretty active. I mean, they could cycle ten miles in thirty minutes.

ALAN

I could cycle ten miles in thirty minutes. I could cycle thirty miles in ten minutes!

JIM

That'd be a hundred and eighty miles an hour!

ALAN

All right, I couldn't do that. But I could do the easier one that you said first. 

JIM

Ten miles in thirty minutes? 

ALAN

Yes.

JIM

Be my guest! 

ALAN

I will be your guest, even though technically you're my guest. Dismount, Reverend Jim Jones! This is live radio, no time like the present. I, Alan Partridge, am going to attempt to cycle 10 miles in 30 minutes. But first, Wizzard!

[ALAN aggressively leans over to reach the sound desk, 'Ball Park Incident' by Wizzard starts and we cut to black]

 

[post-Wizzard, ALAN is casually cycling, having removed a few layers of clothing, and SIMON is back in the studio while JIM sits on the rear banquette looking at his phone, the ALHA award beside him]

ALAN
Simon, do you think Anthea Turner cycles?

SIMON

I don't know.

ALAN

I know, but do you think she cycles?

SIMON

I don't know, I've never given it any thought.

ALAN

Well, think about it now! Do you think she cycles?

SIMON

Yes, yes, I think she probably does.

ALAN

Yeah, I do. I think she probably rides one of those big Dutch bikes with a basket and a bell. She'd cycle along in a flimsy cotton dress with the sun and the breeze in her hair, doing that with her hair. [ALAN waves his head from side to side]

SIMON

Enjoying herself. 

ALAN [starting to get a little out of breath with the cycling]

Enjoying herself, just the wind in her hair. She'd just... discard the bike by the side of the road, find a nice spot in the field and lay down on a tartan blanket with a copy of Grazia, a Thermos flask and a big jam sandwich. Maybe a beef paste cob. Heaven!

SIMON

Of course, she'd have to watch out for combine harvesters! Slice through her like a hot knife through butter.

ALAN

Oh, but what lovely butter!

SIMON

Oh, yes!

ALAN

Lightly salted.

[cut to black]

ALAN [now extremely out of breath and visibly sweating]

I can't do this. I can't do it anymore. I can't do it anymore.

[ALAN pushes himself off the bike and slumps onto the banquette behind him, hair soaked, barely able to speak]

JIM

Okay, okay, take it easy. Take it easy. There's nothing to be ashamed of. A lot of these kids are very fit. 

ALAN

Hang on, are you from Northern Ireland?

JIM

Yeah. 

ALAN

Is it better now that the troubles are over? Yeah?

JIM

Of course. 

ALAN

Yeah, good. I like the murals on the end of the houses. Pictures of men in balaclavas with Tommy guns. It must be like living amongst an artist like Banksy. But, you know, lots of Banksy's. But Banksy's who want to kill people who live near them. 

SIMON [off camera]

Alan?

ALAN

Yeah?

SIMON [off]

It's Anthea. 

ALAN [angrily]

Oh, Christ! I wanted to have a shower before she got here! I brought my wash bag in especially, and some Smints. Go get me a towel. Go get me a towel! [suddenly warmer] Anthea! How are you?

ANTHEA [off]

Hiya. 

ALAN

...Just been cycling!

[cut to black]