Steve Coogan’s Five Most Essential Comedy Performances
If you’re able to get to London by January 25th, or to Dublin in February, you can still get yourself a seat to see Dr. Strangelove, adapted for the stage by The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci and starring Iannucci’s frequent star, Steve Coogan. If you’re not? All you need is a Hulu login to see Coogan’s next most recent performance.
In this week’s episode of What We Do in the Shadows, Coogan débuts as Roderick Cravensworth, father to Matt Berry’s Laszlo — or, to be more precise, his ghost, Roderick having died more than a century ago. It’s reductive to say Roderick is the kind of father who would drive his son to rebel by embracing vampirism, but it might also be true: He’s pompous, he weasels his way into relationships far too quickly and he’s lightly emotionally abusive to the people to whom he’s supposed to be closest. In other words, he’s a Steve Coogan character, but one who can float and is semi-transparent.
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Though Coogan has shown his acting range on screen since the ‘80s, he’s best known (other than to your mom, who loved him in Philomena a few years ago) as a fixture of the British comedy scene. On the occasion of his visit to one of our era’s funniest sitcoms, we should take a moment to appreciate the other comedy roles he’s put his stamp on…
Octavius in ‘Night at the Museum’
The Night at the Museum movies are the kind of four-quadrant title you might instinctively sneer at: Could something meant to appeal to everyone in the family really appeal to any of them? Unfortunately, the series is charming, just a little edgy, might actually teach viewers something about history and does properly belong in the storied pantheon of Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson team-ups. Coogan’s role is, heh heh, small: Like Wilson, he plays a figurine in a Met diorama that comes to life after hours.
In the tradition of cinematic depictions of Romans, Coogan’s centurion Octavius speaks British-accented English while launching a savage (yet wee) attack on Stiller’s interfering security guard, mistaken by all the animated figurines as a giant. Though Octavius and Wilson’s cowboy Jedediah are also wary of each other at first, their eventual friendship is one of the franchise’s more adorable storylines.
Tristram Shandy in ‘Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story’
A few years after writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze brought Susan Orlean’s nonfiction book The Orchid Thief to the screen with Adaptation., writer Frank Cottrell Boyce (credited as Martin Hardy) and director Michael Winterbottom took on another seemingly unadaptable book. Considering it was published in the mid-18th century, Laurence Sterne’s novel is surprisingly postmodern in its elliptical approach to storytelling, and the movie is similarly self-referential — half the plot of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and half a fictionalized look at the making of the movie, with Coogan headlining both sections as the titular character and “himself,” an actor getting messy with his co-stars and crew.
If you stayed for the credits, you got an extra treat from Coogan and Rob Brydon, who plays Tristram’s father Walter and, of course, “himself” in the film.
Proof of concept for another project the two of them might work on a few years later? Hmmmmmm.
Dr. Bright in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’
During a period in Season Six when Larry (Larry David) and Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) separate, Larry acknowledges that he has psychological issues it might be helpful for him to work on if there’s to be any hope of a reunion between them. To this end, he seeks treatment with Dr. Bright (Coogan), who might be too Larry-ish a therapist to treat Larry effectively: His advice is that Larry give Cheryl an ultimatum on their relationship. While anyone could guess that this move backfires spectacularly, where the story goes from there is entirely unpredictable. Coogan fits into Curb perfectly as one of the many figures who either are already nuts when they cross paths with Larry, or who are driven nuts through contact with him.
Steve Coogan in ‘The Trip’
Five years after Tristram Shandy came The Trip. Coogan and Brydon reprise their characterizations as “themselves” from the movie, as friends close enough to be fairly open in their professional rivalry, and to know how to activate each other’s neuroses. The loose premise is that Coogan has been hired to road-trip around England’s best restaurants and write a humorous travelogue about the experience; Brydon joins him to take a short break from fatherhood. Coogan and Brydon are a comedy team for the ages, improvising bits in the car and over their sumptuous restaurant meals. If the movie seems episodic, that’s because initially it was. The Trip’s first incarnation was as a six-episode TV series, edited together into a feature film. Three sequels followed Brydon and Coogan to Italy, Spain, and Greece — all enjoyably slow and lovingly photographed — but the original is still the sharpest and best.
Alan Partridge
If you’ve consumed any British comedy over the past 30 years, you’ve probably encountered Alan Partridge. Originally developed by Coogan and Iannucci for the BBC Radio 4 news spoof On the Hour back in 1991, Alan has continued to reveal himself in multiple sitcoms, news magazine and variety show parodies, films, stage performances, books and podcasts. Fame-hungry and self-regarding, yet insecure and basically untalented, Alan has held nearly every kind of job a British broadcaster can. His fans are now intimately acquainted with his right-wing politics, his reverence for James Bond movies and Abba, his high standards for cars, his disdain for anyone he considers lower-class and his dependence on his long-suffering assistant Lynn (Felicity Montagu). The genius of the character is how he barely evolves with the times — in the way a real TV presenter of his ilk would, and wouldn’t.
Though the Alan Partridge sitcoms — Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge; I’m Alan Partridge; Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge; and This Time With Alan Partridge were once all available to marathon on what was then called HBO Max, they’re much harder to find in the U.S. now. Perhaps the imminent release of the latest series, And Did Those Feet… With Alan Partridge will lead to their being unvaulted again.
