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Article by: John Wright
Steve McKenna |
Okay, a brief paragraph to give you the set up, then on with the good stuff. Fresh on the heels of the ‘Pop Stars’ craze, the Channel 5 Movie Chart Show decided to do something similar, with a quest for a new presenter. After various tape auditions, interviews and rounds, 10,000 or so were whittled down to six, including me. We then did a review for the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’, along with a light grilling by the judges, including the show’s presenter Steve McKenna. Anyway, six became three and I won the national phone vote to win the contest. My prize was initially to interview Ali G for his movie (bit crappy I thought), but they thankfully changed that. I soon found out that Steve had interviewed Britney Spears on her ‘Crossroads’ movie, that could have been me! The lucky git. Little did I know that they had something better for me to do…
Tuesday 26th March 2002, the ‘Curzon’ Cinema in Soho London, the location for the premiere of ‘24 Hour Party People’. I arrived at about 7.30pm with the film crew; typically late as guests were due to arrive then. Absolutely ‘bricking it’ we were whisked inside to set up alongside the other eager Press in attendance. With absolutely no rehearsal, no material or questions to ask, I was plunged into the thick of it, the producer talking in one ear and the cameraman in the other. I was approached by Paul Popplewell and Danny Cunningham who play Paul and Shaun Ryder in the movie, somehow I had to hold a conversation with these guys, remembering to get the best possible sound from the microphone, position myself correctly to get the best shot, as well as looking over their shoulders to see if a bigger star was making their way through, very hard work. This first interview was shoddy at best (after all this is my first time as a TV interviewer), my mic was all over the place as I struggled to think of appropriate questions to ask for an ‘18’ certificated movie and come up with broadcastable material for a family show.
Tony Wilson and
Steve Coogan |
Somehow, I managed to scrape through it without them noticing I was a rank-amateur. I realised that my confidence was growing, the crew stopped talking to me in both ears, and the big stars were on their way, Yay! Thankfully my conversations got increasingly better, and I was getting some good interviews (and pretty entertaining stuff if I say so myself! Pity they didn’t use that material) with Paddy Considine, Ralph Little, and the god-like Rob Brydon who challenged me to an Alan-impression contest, a really great guy. I also had a memorable conversation with Steve’s character in the movie, the infamous Tony Wilson along with his lovely wife who is a former Miss UK no less. Finally, and without warning, I was introduced to the comedy legend himself.
Now at this point, I would like to give you a brief description of what the
producer and I had a discussion about. I am known among my friends for
pulling off a quite convincing Alan Partridge impression, and the producer
wanted me to carry out the interview as Alan Partridge, to see what type of
reaction I would get from Steve. Now, imagine yourself going up to
‘Governator’ Schwarzennegger and saying ‘hasta la vista, baby’ when he was in a bad mood. You can see I was very worried that Steve would get angry and simply walk off, ruining any chance of meeting my Idol; there was also the worry of assault or verbal abuse!
So what I did was start the interview asking questions as Alan, Steve
answered the questions quite normally, unflinching at my prized party piece,
fearing he would get miffed, I decided to stop after a while and finish the
interview off normally. It actually went very smoothly, I got some questions
in there regarding Alan, his future plans for TV and Film, and he was giving
me some thorough, interesting answers. I’m not going to give you a full transcription, firstly because there is too much to write, and secondly, well, thanks to the ‘webmaster’ you will be able to watch it on the site very soon! Steve was a polite and intelligent person, very reserved and I could tell he is a guy who takes his work very seriously. I was quite surprised at the length of time I got with him, and managed to shake his hand twice! Okay, tattoo Alan on my chest and call me Jed, but I don’t care, it was much better than an autograph, and quite surreal.
After the premiere we made out way to the after show party at the London
nightclub, ‘Astoria’. Stars and guests also in attendance included Gollum himself – Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Johnny Vegas – who never went a minute without a pint in each hand, Gail Porter - former presenter of the Movie Chart Show and a nice lass, Moby – swarmed by lots of women, Chrissie Hynde, Tracey Emmin – looking like an extra from Blackadder, Travis, Peter Hook, Dan HipGrave, Ian Brown and the Pet Shop Boys. We filmed the arrivals of the stars and rest of the guest list, and then went inside. My God, what a dump! Obviously the Astoria must have some form of reputation or be the hip place for celebrities to go to, but even so, yikes. Still, the evening picked up; maybe it was the small factor of free, unlimited alcohol in every form. Perhaps the main highlight of the evening (from what I can remember of it) was the main cast performing on stage as what Steve billed ‘The Crappy Undies’ a obvious play on the name of ‘The Happy Mondays’. The cameraman and producer soon left, leaving me on my own for the rest of the night. I spent a brief time at the bar talking to Johnny Vegas, and soon realised it would be foolish to try and keep up with his drinking pace, so I made my way to the dance floor where I got chatting to two, yes TWO, models who unfortunately were there with their boss, still it must have looked good.
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| Steve Coogan, Johnny Vegas and Ralph Little |
So anyway, that’s roughly how the evening went; thankfully there were taxi’s outside as I didn’t have a clue where I was and wouldn’t make it down the street before collapsing. After a pathetic attempt to look sober walking through the hotel lobby, I attempted to form sentences and order some food, this did not go well. I amazed myself by making it back to Wolverhampton the next morning hung over to hell, but dehydration soon took its toll and I was unconscious for the screening of my segment on the show that night. Luckily my parents had taped it back up in Teesside.
The nice people at the recording studios made me a full tape of my recorded
stuff that night, and soon you will be able to see previously unseen footage
of Coogan, including details about the recent Alan Partridge series. You
lucky people you.
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