I Am Not Alan Partridge

One is a philanderer, the other denies having slept with Courtney Love: Steve Coogan plays his alter-ego 'Steve Coogan' in A Cock And Bull Story

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At the height of a salacious press scandal last year, Courtney Love was reported to have complained to a friend of her shame at having "slept with Alan Partridge". She was referring, of course, to reports that she had been impregnated by British comedian Steve Coogan, claims which Coogan denied. Yet the confusion of the identities of Coogan and Partridge amongst even those who claim to have been intimate with the star is not entirely surprising. After all, Coogan has played so cleverly with his various on-screen alter-egos that it's often hard to know where truth ends and fiction begins.

Take the forthcoming movie A Cock And Bull Story a wonderfully adventurous take on a famously unfilmable novel by Laurence Sterne. In the film, Steve Coogan plays a philandering actor (named 'Steve Coogan') who wrestles with the central role of Tristram Shandy while simultaneously trying to shake off the legacy of his Alan Partridge persona. "All his characters are basically the same," says co-star Rob Brydon in the 'making-of-the-film-within-the-film', before adding a cursory "Ah-haaa!" as Coogan mutters "That's not funny".

Later, Coogan is interviewed by former Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, who announces that he wants to start the interview with the deathless phrase "Knowing me, Tony Wilson; knowing you, Steve Coogan!" "Er, I've moved on from that," grumbles Coogan, who ironically played Wilson in the Manchester music biopic 24 Hour Party People as a cross between Brian Epstein and (guess who?) Alan Partridge. Weird or what?

Next page •"'Steve' is just another one of Coogan's creations"