Coogan’s Run – 1995
Coogan’s Run was the 1995 BBC TV series featuring Steve Coogan as a series of odd characters living in the fictional town of Ottle.
It consisted of six self-contained stories, although Coogan’s characters from the other episodes in the series make occasional cameo appearances.
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Summary
Episode 1 – Get Calf
Features two of Coogan’s best loved characters, Paul Calf and his sister Pauline, both played by Coogan.
In this epiosode Paul gets into trouble with three criminal brothers after witnessing a bank robbery and being forced to identify them in court.
He then joins a cult and retreats to their residence where he is lured into a porn film.
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Episode 2 – Dearth of a Salesman
Coogan plays an insensitive, egotistical computer hardware salesman, Gareth Cheeseman. Gareth is similar to Coogan’s most famous creation, Alan Partridge, both in appearance and through being self obsessed and very cocky despite seeming very faulty indeed.
The plot involves Gareth attempting to socialise and make a big sale during a sales conference while constantly checking to see if his car is safe. Despite his faults, Gareth appears destined to land a big contract, but fate intervenes.
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Episode 3 – A Handyman For All Seasons
This one features another previously known character: Ernest Moss had been used in live shows giving a safety lecture (as seen on the 1994 video release Live ‘n’ Lewd).
Set in 1960 and mostly shot in black and white. Ernest Moss (Coogan), a general repairman, attempts to stop a large new property development in his home village while making repairs to his fellow villagers’ homes.
This episode also saw Coogan play the laddish Peter Calf, the Father of Paul.
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Episode four – Thursday Night Fever
In this epiosode Coogan plays mediocre club entertainer Mike Crystal.
Mike invents an alter-ego, Clint Stallone, when his career begins to falter. The manager of his club, Clement (Graham Fellows), thinks Clint is real, and gets his nephew to photograph him in a compromising position with Mike’s girlfriend, Debs.
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Episode 5 – Natural born Quizzers
This time Coogan share the lead role with Patrick Marber as the mad, trivia obsessive Crump brothers, Stewart and Guy.
When the brothers lost a children’s quiz show in 1975, they burned down the studio, killing their parents and one of the sisters from the opposing team.
Twenty years later, the brothers kidnap their therapist and the surviving sister, Cathy (Rebecca Front) and make them re-enact the quiz on the roof of a car park with the transsexual quiz host, Jeremy (Angela) Monkhead. It ends with Stewart and Guy taking the trophy and then detonating a bomb.
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Episode Six – The Curator
For the final episode Coogan plays Tim Fleck, the curator of a very dull museum.
Tim is disgusted to find that his museum is being taken over to build a steak house upon the death of his mother. On the opening night, a masked man massacres the diners and a corrupt local councillor.
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Bonus Clips
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Cast
Starring: Steve Coogan, see individual episode summaries for full details.
Details
Channel: BBC2
Written By:
Steve Coogan
Patrick Marber
David Tyler
Graham Linehan
Arthur Mathews
Geoffrey Perkins
Henry Normal
Produced By: Pozzitive Productions
Original Transmission Dates: 17th November 1995 – 22nd December 1995