TV character Alan Partridge makes a garden at RHS Hampton Court
For the past 24 years, through countless TV series, best-selling books and a smash hit podcast, Steve Coogan’s iconic Alan Partridge character has delighted audiences with his unique brand of comedy. Now, in an exclusive interview, hear Alan in his own words reveal the unlikely story behind his eponymous show garden at this year’s Festival
Cards on the table, always better to be up front about these things: I’m not massively into gardens or gardening in any way, shape or form. Just feel I should make that clear from the outset. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased to be approached by The RHS – especially after being rejected by The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Scottish Daily Mail, the Scottish Mail on Sunday, the i paper, The Spectator, the Metro and Waitrose magazine – but I’m not what you’d consider a gardener or a garden fancier. No disrespect to your readers! I have a lot of time for gardeners – proud, taciturn people with weather beaten faces and limited social skills. I’m just not one myself.
So you’re not exactly green fingered?
So how is it that you came to have a show garden at this year’s Festival?
I think what you’re asking is, ‘what’s the best thing about gardens?’ The answer is simple: al fresco dining. If you’re in someone’s home and you drop a splodge of ketchup, there’s an urgent need to clean it up or hide it, especially if it’s white marble because that can stain. In a garden? No big deal. You can either ignore it completely or smear it into the lawn with the bottom of your shoe. Champagne’s gone warm? Same again. Tip it on a flower bed, toss it into a hedge. Nobody cares. And that to me is the best thing about gardens.
But tell us about the Alan Partridge Sound Bath Garden. How did it come about? We heard there may have been a slight hiccup with a previous designer.
It’s a funny story. I was approached by two garden designers who suggested a garden themed around me. They did the work, but then expected me to pay for it. I refused and the garden was destroyed. As I say, a funny story. Well, when Audible heard this, they thought a sound bath garden would be a great way to promote my podcast even though the overlap between potential listeners and people who’d visit a sound bath garden is literally nil. So, they got some other lads to knock up a similar one. I think that’s what happened anyway, I was on a conference call about it but I zoned out.
Will you be on the garden during Festival week?
Believe me, I wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in China, although with the Chinese tea market valued at US$59 billion, that’s obviously not true. So yes, I’ll be there for the press launch on 30th June, the day before the show opens to the public. Regrettably I have dentist appointments on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and – would you believe it – the 6th of July, so I won’t be on site to meet the public on any show day.
You have previously judged vegetables at village shows – how does it feel to be on the receiving end of the process?
Could. Not. Care. Less. I wouldn’t even say I’m in the running! Trust me, the judges ain’t giving the rosette to a broadcaster cum sound bath garden designer. They’ll give it to a garden that honours the Post Office scandal or 50 Years of the Antiques Roadshow because they’re cowards. It’s not a level playing field. In fact, they’d sooner give the prize to a level playing field and praise it for being “an exquisitely flat rectangle”. Like I say, cowards.
Do you have a favourite garden centre?
To me, a great garden centre is less a shopping outlet and more a destination, just as BP’s Wild Bean cafes are to petrol stations and Gatwick Village once was to retail. ‘Go to buy a shrub, end up spending the day,’ that’s my motto. Wander past the perennials, luxuriate in the aromas of the fertilisers, stop by at the cafe for a freshly-cut sandwich, or certainly a relatively recently cut sandwich. Not that I spend as much time in garden centres as I once did. I used to own a large dangerous dog, Seldom. I was once with him at Spixworth garden centre. We were wandering past the pool with the terrapins in it and I think one of them must have looked at him funny. Yes, he made an awful mess – and I remain grateful to the management team that we were able to keep it out of the courts. But suffice to say I tend to steer clear of garden centres these days unless I really need a trowel.
Do you see any similarities between gardening and broadcasting?
Yes, I do.
