It was Norwich’s own Eastern Uprising, a fiercely contested Anglian (Arab) Spring. Echoes of the protests, impassioned cries from the local populous could be heard reverberating around the globe, where the shockwaves of the story were finding their way onto national media outlets. Te Guardian printed the bottom line, Te Telegraph clamoured for quotes. We are talking, of course, about the most fiercely contested battle in this region’s history. It shook the foundations on which Boudicca once fought with the same gritty indignation, and it started with a hash tag.


lacking a little gumption. But when the date of the premiere for Norwich’s favourite son’s big screen debut came closer, two brave soldiers were shouting from the ranks, “#angliasquarenotleicestersquare”, but was Alan Partridge listening?


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Tere had been murmurations of excitement since the heady Partridge renaissance period, after the release of his autobiography, ‘I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan’ and Sky TV’s brief flirtation with Alan in his ‘Alan Partridge: Places of My Life’ two-part special. Both these events had brought Alan back home to Norwich a few times, and occasional sightings became more regular photo ops until it all kinda culminated in a massive police car chase, led by a faux-retro Radio Norwich radio tour bus, through the city centre past City Hall.


12 /August 2013/outlineonline.co.uk


orwich is usually such an apathetic place; any city that describes itself as ‘fine’ is


It was all in aid of the commissioned movie, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, due for release this month. Te atmosphere in Norwich was electric – surely a film filmed here, starring its no. 1 icon, set against the backdrop of a corporate takeover of North Norfolk Digital, would naturally procure a world premiere here too? Te word from Studiocanal, the film’s distributors, and Baby Cow productions was, well… no. Te news hit us like a steaming Ginsters on the back of the throat. Tey’d opted for the sanitized glitz of Leicester Square – but we weren’t


gonna take it lying down, nor even casually reclining in a loose-fit slack pant.


Te names that will surely be passed on to our grandkids - the revolutionaries that lit the fuse - were two staunch Norwich faithfuls, and massive Partridge-ites, Rob Wilkes - known professionally as graphic designer


Creative Giant – and Rafiq Turnbull, resident Lanes sneaker freaker, owner of Main Source. Teir initial convo on the subject could be seen subsequently as the pollination of a massive idea, but Rob says of that initial meeting of minds, “It was something I had been thinking about, and kind of joking of with friends. My wife will tell you it was her idea - it may have been! She certainly encouraged me to do something about it, that’s for sure. It all took a big step forwards after bumping into Rafiq and his family on Fathers’ Day and we ended up sitting together in the restaurant. As soon as I mentioned to him what my idea was he was all over it, which really confirmed with me that it should happen. Rafiq has been the ideal person to run this campaign with; he's a total Partridge nut and had all the inside jokes and gags that we could use and exploit to make the campaign fun and engage with our audience. Alongside that he's been 100% committed and really took the bull by the horns so to speak, becoming the backbone of the campaign really.”


From that initial chat, a Facebook page was created with a poster of Alan that Rob had skillfully given the Shepard Fairey treatment that was made so famous by the Barack Obama ‘Hope’ posters. It’s fair to say the campaign gathered momentum apace, but did the boys think, despite their obvious support, that London would be listening? “I'd like to say yes”, says Rob, “but is that hindsight now? Maybe… I know that when I initially set up the Facebook page on the Wednesday night I had to pop to the supermarket soon after and my phone was going crazy with likes on Facebook! I remember walking round the aisles and thinking to myself, what if this takes off, it would be crazy.”


Crazy was an understatement. When Norwich goes crazy, it goes full-on bat shit. I saw more posters, bumper stickers, and button badges for the campaign than UKIP placards near Diss pre-election. In fact, if Chloe Smith was looking for a stronger following, I’d suggest she take a louche attitude to daytime broadcasting à la Richard Madeley, get herself a pair of driving gloves and buy a Rover 800. It worked for Alan. Indeed, Norwich got so far behind this campaign that the whisperings of


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