Comedy fans, rejoice! Steve Coogan is back in his iconic role of hapless broadcaster Alan Partridge as he presents another series of fluffy magazine show This Time.

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The first series aired back in 2019 and blended Alan's delightfully awkward hosting of The One Show parody with shorter segments which gave us a peek at what goes on when the cameras aren't rolling.

It particularly focused on the tension between Alan and his co-presenter Jennie Gresham (Susannah Fielding), ending in a huge fallout between the two that put their future on the show at risk.

Presumably, they've worked past their differences as both will be back to front This Time once more – and here you can find everything we know about the new episodes so far.

This Time with Alan Partridge series 2 release date

CONFIRMED: This Time with Alan Partridge series two premieres on BBC One at 9:30pm on Friday 30th April.

The second series was confirmed to be in the works by Steve Coogan himself in February 2020, although the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic delayed production until the end of the year.

Co-writer Neil Gibbons had previously told RadioTimes.com that he and his brother Rob, who have worked on all of Alan's recent outings, require a period of "decompression" after completing one of his projects.

"When you do Partridge, it’s quite an intense working process" he said. "The writing process never ends really because we write in the writing stage, in the shooting stage and in the editing stage, so you tend not to strategise that many steps ahead.

"It’s such an immersive experience that when you come out of it you just want to think about other things, so we don’t really have a life plan for Alan all mapped out. We just wait until the juices start flowing again and then see where we think Alan would go and what he’d be doing and wait for the ideas to bubble up organically."

This Time with Alan Partridge cast

Steve Coogan will return to the role of Alan Partridge, a character he has portrayed for the last 30 years across a wide variety of projects, including several television shows, a podcast and an audiobook.

He will be joined by Susannah Fielding as This Time co-presenter Jennie Gresham, who recently played Ruth Stone on the BBC One drama Life as well as Isobel Jones on ITV thriller Sticks and Stones.

Meanwhile, Felicity Montagu and Tim Key are also set to return as two of Alan's most loyal allies in the cutthroat world of broadcasting: assistant Lynn Benfield and sidekick Simon Denton.

The guest cast for the first series included Simon Farnaby (Ghosts) as rival host Sam Chatwin and Lolly Adefope (Miracle Workers) as challenging correspondent Ruth Duggan, but it's yet to be confirmed if either could be back for more.

We'll update this page with more information as it comes in.

This Time with Alan Partridge plot

This Time with Alan Partridge stars Steve Coogan
BBC

This Time ended its first series on something of a cliffhanger as Jennie reached her limit and stormed off set, leaving Alan to disastrously present with only Sidekick Simon (Tim Key) for support.

After the broadcast, Alan was summoned to a meeting with the BBC director-general, with the implication that he could be getting the sack mere weeks after returning to the broadcaster.

However, it appears that Alan and Jennie have set aside their differences as both will be back on the sofa for series two of This Time, so expect more awkwardness and bizarre reports on all manner of topics.

"These magazine shows are on every day," Fielding said at the time of the series one launch. "There’s always the brilliant juxtaposition of really relevant topical stuff and then complete inane random crap... and there’s endless amounts of that; there’s all sorts of topical things that we could do in a second series."

In a more recent interview with RadioTimes.com, Fielding confirmed that This Time series two will not address the coronavirus pandemic, with the writing team concluding that the public have had quite enough of it by now.

This Time with Alan Partridge trailer

There's no trailer for This Time with Alan Partridge series two just yet, but we can expect to see one soon as the series will be back on our screens later this month.

Armando Iannucci
Armando Iannucci
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This Time with Alan Partridge returns to BBC One on Friday 30th April at 9:30pm. While you're waiting, check out our TV Guide to see what's on tonight.

Authors

Paul Jones, RadioTimes.com
Paul JonesExecutive Editor, RadioTimes.com
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