This programme contains some strong language
Hello. Hello!
Good evening. Hi. I'm Alan Partridge, and talking is what I do.
It's sustained a career that's taken in TV, radio, podcasting,
things on Sky and, when I parted ways with the BBC in 2022,
a stint doing corporate presenting work
for one of the most forward-looking governments in the world.
I'm here to tell you about a very special product -
one that flows from the teat of this wonderful beast.
The glorious Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys
a thriving camel-milk sector, with products including milk,
cheese, yoghurt, gelato, laban, and other derivatives.
I've tried them all, and I can tell you, they really are delicious.
Cheers!
Urgh!
That kind of thing? Go again?
I'll do as many as you like until I have pleased you.
I spent 12 months in Saudi, fronting everything
from Happy Birthday Crown Prince,
to Today at the Riyadh Stock Exchange.
But far from selling my mouth to the highest bidder,
I talk because it makes me feel good...
..which makes me wonder -
could talking be the key to better mental health?
Welcome to...
How are you?
The final, then, of the Year 9 200m.
Naismith, Velacott, St John-Atwell,
Wu and Douglas-Hyde.
In this series, I'm exploring the mental health of the nation
in association with Flench & Son Tanning Centres.
Today, I'm lending my commentary skills to the annual sports gala
at All Hallows School, in Norfolk.
The boarders here come from a long line of stiff upper lips
and I'm wondering, has not talking about their problems
ever done them any harm?
Good to see a few handshakes.
The firm grip of beautifully brought-up boys.
When they take their marks, of course, the conviviality ends.
The school motto, - triumphans et invictus -
never been more pertinent.
Latin for triumphant and unconquered, which some see as
a bit hateful, but you don't produce the leaders of tomorrow
with mottos about being kind and helpful to people you don't know.
And they take their marks, the Year 9 200m dash,
sponsored by Hibiscus Wealth Management,
shaping dreams, securing futures.
Lesser schools use a klaxon.
Here, of course, we're allowed to use a starting pistol,
safe in the knowledge that it won't fall into the wrong hands
and be used to hold up a post office.
GUNSHOT And they're off! These boys racing
with each other, but they've already won the race of life by going to
a fee-paying school. Douglas-Hyde in the lead,
Douglas-Hyde looks about 25 years old, obviously post-pubescent,
nothing wrong with that. Douglas-Hyde wins the race!
For the boys, it's a chance to both strive for sporting excellence
and glimpse parents they've not seen since the Easter holidays.
Parents, who've worked up a thirst,
do pay a visit to the champagne tent
sponsored by Jupiter Asset Management,
recruiting the best and brightest for a better tomorrow.
And anyone who thinks that sounds a bit stuffy,
let me tell you, there'll also be a live performance
from five-piece school rock band Riot Shield.
And they'll be performing in the Benjamin Britten Music Centre.
Some see boarding school as a way of subcontracting parenting
to strangers, and whilst that's literally true,
what would you rather have?
A mopey Joe traipsing round the house,
leaving the lids off jars, or a well-connected asset
who adds value to the family? Ask them what they feel
and I'm sure they'll say that feelings are something to lock
in a tiffin box under the bed, along with biscuits and letters from Mum.
No, they do just fine with their stiff upper lips.
Our country's future is safe in the hands of
these wonderful fee-paying boys.
Cheers!
ALL: Cheers!
And how dare their parents be made to pay VAT.
Personally, I love to talk,
whether it's to an audience of millions, or an audience of one.
Here I am recording personalised messages for fans.
Happy 49th birthday, Penelope.
What a day! To get your decree nisi from your divorce
AND planning permission for your barn conversion on the same day -
got to be sweet!
Hello, Sheila. I know you can't be here,
but Brian's told me to show you the chickens.
There's a ginger one, pecking at my toe.
Look at that. There's a sort of tan one.
OK, that's it.
100 quid.
It's a nice little earner, but what's interesting is how willing
people are to talk about almost any subject, apart from mental health.
So, what does the data say?
In a fascinating study by Peartree Analytics, when asked
if they found it hard to talk about their problems, 75% said they did.
12% said they didn't know, which is a pointless answer.
And Norfolk is more affected than most,
with farmers feeling the least able to open up.
But then who'd want to spend an afternoon talking to a farmer?
And yet the view among psychologists is that only if we learn to talk
can we address the mental health problems that dog us.
To learn more, I've come to Norwich Cathedral.
I adore Norwich Cathedral.
The dean rarely grants permission to film here,
but I've been given special dispensation because I'm both
a proud patron and the voice of the visitors' audio guide.
A far cry from modern churches,
which look more like shoe shops or spaceships.
One of several local attractions to feature my voice...
Get out of the way!
Including a fleet of grocery vans, and the lift at Norwich Library.
Second floor.
Which went less well,
due to a milkshake repeating on me in the booth.
Fourth fl-fl-floor.
But I am not here to educate sightseers.
I've come here to learn about the language of mental health
and, in Dr Marion Boyle, I'll be talking to an actual expert,
rather than just a confident person with a podcast.
Dr Marion. Thanks so much for...
Shush! You're glaring at me, but I'm not being rude,
because that's the name of your new book, isn't it?
That's right. It's called Shush - Finding Placid Amid The Noise
And The Haste, and it's really just an exploration into
our mental health and our wellbeing.
Yes, because mental health can mean different things to different
people, can't it? From anxiety disorders, right through to
dissociative conditions, such as paranoid schizophrenia.
Well, that's a very good way of putting it.
Thank you. I got it off the internet.
We should be looking after our minds
in the same way that we look after our bodies.
If you have indigestion, you can pop a Rennie.
But when it comes to this, you can't just go to the bathroom cabinet,
take out some mental cream and rub it on your head.
Well, no, of course, but what we do have is antidepressants.
Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about those. Are they any good?
Well, they can be, but of course you do make a very good point...
Cheers. ..which is that, up until recently, some of the language
surrounding mental health and wellbeing hasn't always been
very helpful. What were once medical terms are now words you would only
ever use to a learner driver - imbecile, lunatic.
And up until very recently,
we used to use the word idiot as a clinical term.
I mean, it's horrific to think that a GP could've called you
into his surgery, sat you down and said, "The results have come back.
"They're not what we would've hoped. There's no easy way of putting this,
"but I'm sorry to have to tell you, you're an idiot."
Of course, and that's why the terminology is so, so important.
OCD, ADHD, bipolar, and it is just to get rid of that stigma,
if you like. Absolutely, and not before time.
Time was when OCD would be houseproud or fussy,
ADHD would've been ants in the pants,
bipolar disorder would've been moody.
When my assistant has her panic attacks, I think
most people would say she's flapping or in a tizz.
Do you mind me saying that you don't blink?
It had been a useful meeting with the doctor, even though
I later found out her book was self-published
and she'd got her degree from the University of Central Lancashire.
How ARE you?
ALAN QUACKS
So, that's the theory.
But does talking really help us surmount problems?
Time to put it to the test in a familiar high-stress situation.
What you're about to watch is a controlled experiment.
I'm with my assistant.
She's an unskilled worker in her early 70s
in the middle-to-low income bracket.
She's of sound mind, in good health, and not under the influence
of any prescription medication, apart from something for IBS
and cod liver oil as a rearguard action against arthritis.
But nothing for anxiety.
We both agreed we wouldn't want to compromise her concentration.
Relax your jaw.
My assistant, whose driving style is
best described as flustered hesitancy,
will be taking the short drive into Norwich twice.
Down into second.
The first with me talking
about the flaws in her driving. The second in silence.
Don't clench your teeth.
Which will prove fastest?
Easy, easy, tiger.
Yeah, that wasn't bad, was it? Easy.
You're a little too heavy on the throttle.
A little too heavy on the brake.
You do suffer from pedal panic, Lynn.
That's the thing. Remember, it's a three-pedal dance.
Be in harmony with the car.
The Japanese have a word for it,
but I can't remember what it is.
You can pop her into third, if you want.
I was just doing that.
You're panicking, Lynn. Breathe.
You're allowed to breathe.
Wrong lane.
Sometimes I feel like I'm a driving examiner, you know.
When I want you to do an emergency stop, I will tap the dash...
ALAN TAPS THE DASHBOARD What the BLEEP are you doing?!
After a frank exchange of views and a muttered apology,
we continued the drive and reached Norwich.
This time, rather than expressing myself,
I'll be keeping silent and comparing the difference.
And while the atmosphere was markedly more frosty,
what would it mean for her time?
Oh, that's interesting.
The drive had been quicker than when I'd been providing guidance,
but that may have been just her trying to make a point,
which sadly voids the experiment.
DISTORTED: What the fuck are you doing?!
In 2023, I sunk a large portion of my savings into a start-up
that generates AI video.
Yet, prompted to show Alan Partridge
in a yurt with Carol Vorderman,
or Alan Partridge flies a jetpack over Norfolk,
the results are incredibly poor.
The company, whose software struggles to animate movement
and is unable to do hands, was named "one to watch" in the business pages
of the Norwich Gazette.
But AI is a useful metaphor for what each of us do
in our own lives, artificially generating different versions
of ourselves to pass off as the real thing.
There's business Alan, tough Alan,
sexy Alan, grandad Alan, hissy Alan,
beefy Alan, cool Alan, Top Gun Alan, jet-set Alan, cardigan Alan,
chef Alan, judo Alan, Alan, Alan, Alan, Alan, Alan...
And there are more Alans.
Knackered.
At home, with my neighbour and lover Katrina,
I tend to be laid-back Alan,
shooting the breeze at my tripedal breakfast bar
and helping out where I can.
If you're filling your car up later, can you do mine as well?
You want me to drive my car to a petrol station
and then do the same with yours?
Might as well. Yeah, yeah, I'm there anyway, aren't I?
But you'll have to go back twice. Leave it.
But to get to the heart of who we really are,
experts say the key is to talk about our feelings.
So, how do we do it?
For taciturn, emotionally stunted people,
e.g. from Eton or Scotland,
speaking about your emotions can be a daunting experience.
One useful exercise is to talk about something else,
be it cookery, or soccer, or the Second World War.
After time, you'll develop a muscle memory for chat,
at which point you can jump off and tell people why you're so fed up.
One man I know went from speaking about cathedrals
to his erectile dysfunction in about four minutes,
and that's the quickest I've seen it done.
To try this idea out, I'm heading to a book group,
although I've arrived slightly late
because the woman now showing me in gave me the wrong postcode.
Hello, everyone. Joining our group just for today... Hi.
While men enjoy reading books, women enjoy talking about them.
It's a sociable and collegiate way to boost their wellbeing,
while finding out if they like the book they've just read.
This week, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan,
no relation to Kevin, which I skim read in the car.
She wrongfoots you though, doesn't she?
Like, showing the brutality of the Magdalene laundries through
the eyes of a man, I thought, "Hm, I'm not sure about that."
Bit of a bold choice.
Claire is bold.
I did think there was a sweetness to it, though.
The Christmas bit where they're decorating the...
Tree. No, it's a cake.
It is the cake.
I just wanted to reach into the book and hug her.
It felt like...Bridget Jones, but turbo-charged.
Yeah. Probably what you meant to say is Bridget Jones
but supercharged, rather than turbo-charged,
because that way you eliminate the turbo lag,
but I absolutely get the gist of what you ladies are trying to say.
I know you're not a lady.
You understood what I meant, didn't you? Yeah, turbo lag.
Turbo lag, precisely, yeah.
To my surprise, I found talking about books immensely enjoyable,
and I soon found myself fully engaged,
despite the fact that it had been a long day.
I thought it was more of a novella than a novel...
ALAN SNORES
..but all the same
I didn't feel short-changed by the story.
ALAN BREAKS WIND
Pardon me.
You're absolutely right there, Susan. I would agree.
I felt it was...
Well, these bookworms might look like they're just discussing novels,
but a regular attendee will see a different dynamic at play,
one in which Cynthia gets to flex the grey matter, which lies dormant
when she's around her estate agent husband, and Susan gets to forget
all about her drink-drive conviction in which a police horse died.
And, yeah, she's doing fine.
What are YOU doing in a woman's book group?
Just having a read of this. It's a great book.
Have you read it? Yeah. It's good. It's a good book.
You?
Um...
..nah.
So, what are we going to read next week, do you think, guys?
Do you have any suggestions?
Yes. Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean.
It's about a Russian submarine with nuclear warheads
hidden beneath the polar ice caps, and you just think, "That's crazy,"
but it was later discovered that there WAS a Soviet submarine
hidden beneath the polar ice caps with nuclear warheads,
and so you think, "Well, did Alistair MacLean predict the future?
"Or did the Russians read Ice Station Zebra and think,
"'Let's do... That's a good idea.'"
But, er...
..when you think about how the Soviets nearly destroyed the world,
it makes a shiver go down your spine.
Does it make a shiver go down your women's spines?
I relished the chance to talk, but the important thing about
any social event is knowing just the right time to leave.
You all right?
SLURRED: Yeah, I just think, if you're going to run
a book group, you have a moral duty to tell people you're going to
provide white wine, so they don't turn up with an empty stomach.
Or, you know, do...just do some sandwiches.
But what if talking isn't the answer?
What if the best way to process your feelings isn't to be
grown-up about it, but to do the opposite?
After all, children don't sit around talking about their feelings,
yet you don't see depressed eight-year-olds
staring at women in hotel bars.
Instead, they play.
To explore this further, I've come to the estate I grew up on,
where childhood friend Jez Chaudry, who's thinking about getting
a bigger house number, has agreed to spend the afternoon
with me for the fee.
Shall I come in? Shall I come in? Shall I come in? Great.
Shall I come in? Yeah, if you want to.
I asked you five times there.
They say, "Show me a seven-year-old boy and I'll show you the man."
Although there's got to be a better way of phrasing that.
That man was me, and I wanted to rediscover him.
And, so, we set off on vintage cycles, hired in an ironic way
by Shoreditch millennials, but which we were able to enjoy at face value.
I was keen to reminisce about the freedom
and hijinks of our salad days but in the end couldn't
because Jez wanted to tell me about how interesting his job was.
I'm in digital marketing for Pfizer.
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I've got a great team.
A licence to develop digital marketing strategy,
but also individual campaigns.
When he was a child, he wanted to be an astronaut.
But maybe the happiness I experienced
when I was seven exists only in my mind.
In fact, life wasn't always rosy.
I was punched on three occasions outside a chip shop
by a 13-year-old girl.
I think this is her now.
Or this.
Do you remember Mickey had stabilisers on his bike,
even when he was 12? Softie, Mickey.
Yeah. He still lives round here.
Yeah?
Yeah. So did Bill Pinsent. He's gone now.
Quite a few of our class are gone now.
Yeah. There was about six of them in a row.
It was, er, cancer, cancer, stroke,
cancer, suicide, choked.
Yeah.
I think Bill just fell over, didn't he? Oh, you heard about that?
I was invited to the funeral,
but it clashed with the National TV Awards, so...
Wow, you were at the National TV Awards?
No, I was just watching it on TV.
But, you know, it's a shame cos he was a nice guy.
Big heart. Yeah, big heart, big portions.
Jez, do you ever look back on those days and think, you know,
maybe we were happier then?
Sometimes, yeah.
Lying on grass where sunlight dapples,
enjoying apples, and boys' grapples,
on those forever afternoons.
That's really nice.
Graze-y knees and rose of cheek,
we'd ride our bikes up to the creek,
trousers short, but days so long,
on those forever afternoons.
Then Bill said, "Bye!" "But why?" we cry.
"Tis late," Bill sighed. "But soon we'll ride
"on another forever afternoon.'
A few minutes more, oh, let's explore, till ten past four,
when bums are sore, on this forever afternoon.
And when next we came to call on Bill,
his mother's eyes began to fill.
"Where's Bill?" said I.
She began to sigh.
"Bill went off to die."
"But why?"
"Because 50 years went by."
Oh, what we'd give to see Bill live.
We'd knock on doors, then ride in fours, pedals without a cause,
one more forever afternoon.
Oh, it's shit, I don't know why I wrote it.
You just going to leave that there?
No, I'll pick it up.
But no recreation of the good old days would be complete
without our other childhood friend, Mickey Allsop.
You all right? Yeah. I'm fine.
Doing a wheelie.
This is the wrong house.
I think it's this one.
Yeah, I know.
DOORBELL RINGS
Hello, Mrs Allsop?
Is Mickey in?
He's in the other room. Oh, right.
Is he watching TV?
He's doing his accounts.
Of course, you're his wife.
OK, tell him we'll be down on the green,
if he's got...wants to join us for about half an hour.
It's just a... Just sort of a reunion.
Yeah. Tell him to wear his trainers.
Thanks.
And so, for a fleeting moment, we were seven again,
when the dreams we had as children were still possible.
Maybe you will join Nasa.
Maybe you should become the chairman of ICI.
Maybe you can marry your cousin.
# I've been waiting for so long
# To come here now and sing this song
# Don't crack up
# Bend your brain
# See both sides
# Throw off your mental chains
# Ooh, ooh, ooh... #
So, er, what do you want to do now?
We were just saying we might go for a pint, if you fancy joining us.
I'm not sure. I might cycle round a bit more.
Heard some lads saying they were building a ramp.
I might go and check it out.
Oh, if you change your mind... Nah.
How are your parents?
They're both dead. Oh, yeah.
And yours? Same.
Yeah, mine too. See ya!
But one last forever afternoon had made me realise not only that
I should make my poem, Song For The Biker Boys, available
as a free download for private schools,
but also that reaching out and talking have brought me
real mental health benefits.
And now, having found my voice, I'm going to use it for good.
I'm going to take that voice and put it into the mouth of someone
who needs it more than I do - a woman.
Because for too long, people like me have put the "men" into mental
and the "he" into health.
Well, not any more.
I've had my run-ins with Mumsnet,
but it remains a great way to find women with a grievance.
While browsing one day, I was touched by the story of a woman
dismissed by her employer when she'd raised her mental concerns.
So, I arranged to meet her in some remote woodland.
Leona, I want to take you back to a very painful time.
It's summer 2023, Britain is sweltering
in record temperatures, HS2 has just been cancelled,
correctly, in my view - why would you want to get to the north
quicker? - and for Leona Maguire, that's you, you've just landed
your dream job as an administrator for CXG Technologies.
Tell me what happened. Well, I'm not a very loud person, so...
Just do speak up a little. OK. I'm not very outgoing,
and they were very demanding.
They were, sort of, that ex-public school type.
Yeah. Very sort of full of themselves.
Yeah, I imagine, for a quiet woman like you,
and you are quiet, really quiet,
I can imagine that that abrasive, underqualified, overconfident
I want to say twattery must have been quite overwhelming.
Well, yeah, I started to struggle with anxiety, and then
I missed the odd day, and of course the bosses didn't like that.
Yeah, do try and speak up a bit. OK, sorry.
And then they gave me all these reasons,
but I just think that they couldn't be bothered with me.
Yeah, and that's not on because, I'm an employer, I have staff,
and sometimes she's unwell or has a personal issue,
and obviously your first thought is,
"Oh, great, looks like I'm picking up my own dry cleaning then."
But as an employer, you have a duty of care, so you say,
"All right, take the day off.
"Just come in early tomorrow to make up the time you lost."
But they didn't do that. No, no, they called me in and they told me
that my services were no longer required,
even though the week before I had asked to speak to a counsellor.
And they definitely heard you? Yeah.
But when I asked them if that was the reason why,
they didn't really elaborate.
Well, they're going to elaborate today, Leona,
because I'm going to bang some heads together.
In fact, I'm going to bang so many heads together,
it's going to be like human conkers. Are you ready? I think so.
Yeah, all right, remember, volume! Do you have conkers in Ireland?
OK, now, this is YOUR story, all right?
So, I'll go over there and pin them down, and then
you give that speech.
Everything you said in that incredibly moving voicemail.
Oh, I wasn't sure that you got that.
Yeah, I just didn't reply.
OK, well, the hardest thing was coming home with no job
and telling my son that Disneyland had been cancelled.
OK, now, make it personal, use his name.
What's his name? Tighe.
Tighe? Yes.
Yeah, don't use his name.
OK, well he's been very brave and...
No, no, don't say he's brave.
You're brave. He's broken.
And what are you not going to do?
Um...speak quietly.
Pardon? Speak quietly.
What else aren't you going to do?
Be bullied. Finally!
Time for the sting.
Wearing a hidden camera disguised as a standard dental brooch,
I'm infiltrating an investor open day...
And you're going to see why I set up this company.
..a public showdown designed to achieve maximum embarrassment
for this guy, the man who sacked Leona,
smug CEO Craig Gardner,
wearing what people like him call a gilet,
and people like me call a bodywarmer.
Within the next four years, maybe even... Just wanted to ask about
the recently discontinued LM unit.
The LM unit? Yeah, it was a multifunctional appliance,
just didn't realise it was disposable.
I'm not aware of the LM unit.
There's one over there. Come on.
LM. Leona Maguire. OK, got it.
Yeah, you decommissioned the unit earlier this year, threw it
in a skip with a load of hard drives and the bottom half of a shop dummy.
I'd welcome the opportunity to talk... Do you normally terminate
people's employment without due process? What I'm happy to do is...
Don't talk over me, just because you went to public school.
You know, you may be able to drown out a timid woman with a thin voice.
We do accept inquiries through our main switchboard... Not so easy when
it's a professional broadcaster, is it? We tried the switchboard
already. Her name is Leona Maguire, you know who she is. We do treat
our staff... See, I can talk and listen at the same time.
It comes from having talkback in my ear whilst presenting live TV.
I can go on all afternoon.
Thank you.
You know, it doesn't matter how many fancy websites you have or
high-tech computer backpacks or whatever it is...
It's a jet suit.
What, like a jetpack? We prefer to say jet suit.
Wow. What, can these actually fly?
Yeah.
My son, Tighe, has been broken by this.
Yeah, she's a very, very brave woman.
Do you need specialist skills to operate it or...?
You can pick it up in a couple of hours.
Oh.
What, me?
A tete-a-tete with Leona confirmed what I already knew -
that this was something I had to do to give her story
the hearing it deserved.
Now, do you think if I put on one of these so-called jetpacks
that would shine a light on people like you?
I don't know. Because I think it will.
I just don't see what that has to do with... Yeah, but otherwise
all you've got is middle-aged woman gets the sack.
You introduce the jetpack and, bam, you've got 'em.
You see? Do you see now how I'm trying to help you?
Yeah. Right, good. Let's get the jetpack!
OK. Has Dan Snow had a go at this?
No. Good, good.
And Ben Fogle? No. Great.
So, if Fogle or Snow get in touch, just delay getting back to them
so that it doesn't actually happen.
OK, I'm ready to fly.
And while my microphone may have caught some gentle exuberance,
women's mental health was never far from my mind.
Ohhhhh!
That is absolutely awesome!
Absolutely awesome!
How much do these cost? Cos I'll tell you something,
I'm definitely getting one of these.
Sell your house, sell the kids, but get one before they ban it
cos, I tell you what, they should!
Reducing throttle for controlled descent onto Range Rover roof.
Ladder required.
Well, for Leona, it's very much mission accomplished.
My flight drew attention to her plight.
In that regard, very much a plight flight.
But it was whilst I was airborne, flying like an eagle, I realised
the weightlessness I felt from jet propulsion was nothing
compared to the weightlessness we all feel
when we unburden ourselves, let our feelings out...
Jesus!
And just talk.
Goodbye.