Though Alan Partridge will inevitably be the first line of Steve Coogans obituaries, Tommy Saxondale is a more subtle creation. A middle-aged, former heavy metal roadie now running a pest control business and enduring an ongoing mid-life crisis in Stevenage, Saxondale shares with Partridge a failure to fully accept the fact that his glory days are over. But, crucially, he deals with the diminishment of his dreams with a certain wistful warmth, as opposed to Partridges vindictive bitterness, which makes him a much more plausible character. We are implicitly instructed to laugh at Partridge. We are invited to laugh with Saxondale. The crucial, humanising at moments, genuinely heartbreaking difference is that Saxondale knows, at bottom, that hes ridiculous.