Coogan’s secret creation

Steve Coogan has been working on a new character - a trendy and annoying media type.

The Alan Partridge star revealed that he has been working on ideas for the persona while creating Tommy Saxondale.

He even wrote a sitcom episode for the ‘journalist-stroke-TV presenter’, who was likely to be called Bill Cookson, with his collaborator Neil Maclennan.

But in the end, the pair chose to make Saxondale for BBC Two instead.

Coogan told the Independent on Sunday: ‘Myself and Neil developed two characters in tandem. The other was much more of a contemporary character: a very edgy, zeitgeisty, über-trendy, post-modern, smart, savvy... annoying character.’

In the script he wrote, Cookson, became excited when he listens to a rap album at a dinner party and hears a real drive-by shooting.

‘It\'s that slightly odd fascination with deprivation and danger that grammar school and university boys are attracted to, but don\'t actually want to be part of,’ Coogan said. ‘Trying to be very hip and with-it, but underneath very conservative.’

Saxondale, which returned to BBC Two a fortnight ago, took Coogan and Maclennan nine moths to write.

Coogan said: ‘In the end, there\'s no substitute for sitting down and putting the hours in. It\'s a good discipline to write every day for several months and take your time over it.’

Click here to watch a clip from the new series.\r\n

Published: 3 Sep 2007