We Need To Talk About Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

we need to talk about Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

(TW: SA)

To make a long story short, I watched Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (which I will be calling APAP for the rest of this post) over the weekend and almost immediately ordered APAP Script and Scrapped, which is the full script of the movie complete with a forward and deleted scenes. While reading and annotating the script recently, I came across the scene where Alan tactlessly removes a former fling from the company dinner, and…alludes to being the victim of SA??? After watching the first half of the movie over with my best friend last night (we would have watched the whole thing but we were almost falling asleep) the two of us have managed to make a mountain out of a molehill, the molehill in this case being Alan’s line “I couldn’t speak” when told that she didn’t hear him complaining that night.

Explanation, and spoilers, under the cut

Ignore my annotations, or read them if you wish, but I think this scene was criminally ignored by most. The first time I watched it I remember thinking “was he assaulted?????” But I didn’t catch anything later in the movie that referenced this scene. That is, not until my friend and I got together last night.

It’s important to remember that although Alan’s actions towards Lynn throughout the movie are dismissive or disrespectful throughout the movie, even “firing” her towards the end (I suppose the more appropriate term would be sacking) he still trusts this woman very much. This can be seen when she sits in the bathroom with him while he preens himself for the dinner party, and later when she kneels beside him after he’s shot twice. Although their relationship is employer and assistant, she’s been a recurrent character throughout the Alan Partridge series, and their friendship is very intimate and trust-filled. When she brings up this woman from the ice rink, Alan seems completely ready to disclose his night at her house. A movie and a catnap, easy as that. However, his story doesn’t seem to line up.

The woman from the ice rink, who’s name we learn is Bernie, claims that the two had sex, and that if he lied about wanting to see her again then he must have just been using her for the sex. Alan then suggests that it was him being used, because he didn’t have a say in anything that occurred. Nothing else about their night is disclosed, other than the fact that Bernie shares her room with a loud bunch of dogs (and it’s their room too) but if you pay attention to some later moments in the movie, you can flesh out a story. But back to Lynn and Alan for a moment. The fact that Alan doesn’t disclose the sex he partook in that night can lead to one of two conclusions.

He simply didn’t trust Linda enough to mention his sexual encounters

He didn’t want to remember the sex because it was a traumatizing experience

I think the first conclusion can be pretty easily disputed when we considered he’s comfortable enough to watch porn around Lynn and not close his browser. Now, when we look at his story of the night compared to Bernie’s, remember the armchair he mentions? I believe that Bernie’s story picks up where Alan’s leaves off. The armchair is important.

Fast forward to Alan seeing Simon in the duct tape bindings and the head holster.

As you can see from the annotation I made, I originally wrote the line about safe words off as Alan being kinky (and I referenced the kinky get bit from the beginning of the movie) but a few minutes later these safe words come back into play.

After the scene all about Pat’s loss of Molly, we’re given this scene, in which Pat wakes Alan from his slumber on the studio couch. Alan’s first instinct while waking up is to say ‘Crayfish’, one of the safe words listed earlier. Why is his gut reaction to say a safe word when woken up suddenly from his slumber sitting on the couch? The safe words, the arm chair, Alan’s story, it’s a little bit of a stretch but you can start to line up a story. Alan and Bernie went to her place, with the intentions of sex and safeword(s) in place, but ended up watching Air Crash Investigations before Alan fell asleep on the armchair. Bernie wanted more, and so decided to make a move while Alan was sleeping. When Alan awoke to her on him he tried to use one of the safe words they set, but she continued.

Therefore, Alan really was the one who was used that night, and he really couldn’t speak or complain because he had been asleep.

Maybe it’s a stretch and I missed the joke behind it all or really did make a mountain out of a molehill, or maybe there’s even more evidence later in the movie that my friend and I didn’t see because we went to bed. However you want to read it, there’s definitely something underneath.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.