In the summer of 1998 I was lucky enough to see ‘Steve Coogan Live: The Man Who Thinks He’s It’ at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. I can safely say that it was one of the best nights out in my life.
Here I am reviewing the video filmed at the Palace Theatre in Manchester - another date of his 200 date sell-out tour that also included a record breaking 10 week run at London’s Lyceum Theatre playing to over 350,00 people.
It includes extra material not seen in the shows where a bigheaded (homosexual) and mentally disturbed Steve Coogan is depicted behind the scenes of the show. However these extra scenes don’t make up for the reduced film of the show which seems to have been cut down to make way for these extras.
This is where the disappointment lies, because if you saw the show, although watching the video at first brings back memories, after watching the video a couple of times, you forget the live show and only remember what are essentially highlights from the video.
The selected film from the Manchester show focuses more on the spoken sections of the show opposed to the musical sections. For each of Coogan’s five acts (Pauline Calf, Tony Ferroino, Duncan Thikett, Paul Calf and the one and only Alan Partridge) you only get to hear one of their songs. Also the sections between the acts featuring Simon Pegg (BBC2’s Hippies and Big Train) as a nervous Stage Manager, actor Alex D’arcy…) and Julia Davies (Channel 4’s Smack the Pony) as Pauline Calf’s friend Michelle which where very funny parts of the show, where either cut out or severally shortened.
If you haven’t seen the show, but like Coogan’s other stuff such as Knowing Me, Knowing You and Coogan’s Run, then go out and buy this video now. However if you did see the show, then stick to the memories and the souvenir programme!
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