They know all about action, adventure and danger at Pinewood Studios. The 39 Steps was filmed there, the first Batman, Mission: Impossible, and the movies of James Bond. But the one they will have had in mind yesterday will have been Alien; for while so much goes right there, sometimes things go wrong, and so it is that managers at ...

It is almost impossible to work as a BBC local radio presenter without the Alan Partridge reference being thrown your way. When I did my weekend late show on local stations in the north, the comedian Michael McIntyre, who was a studio guest, said that I reminded him of Alan Partridge. I explained how Steve Coogan was born and brought ...

Once funny, will a character always be funny? Or do comic personae have a sell-by date? I saw Steve Coogan at the weekend, who wheeled out a selection of his comic alter egos created over a 20-year period. Not only did the older characters - Alan Partridge, Paul and Pauline Calf - bear up well, they more or less eclipsed the newest ...