After years of being the anonymous brains behind the comedy success of the likes of Steve Coogan and Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci is finally establishing himself as a celebrity in his own right. The Scottish satirist, who arrives in Manchester this week with his own show, has been responsible for some of this decade's sharpest comedy, writing and producing news parody, 'The Day Today', chat show spoof 'Knowing Me, Knowing You... With Alan Partridge' and the follow-up sitcom, 'I'm Alan Partridge'.

His emergence from the production room bunker began with supporting ports alongside Alan Partridge, and was completed with his lead role in the weekly BBC Two review show 'Friday Night Armistice' Armando's the one with the sticking out ears and the big eyes). Now he's taking a step further by going solo in front of live audiences up and down the country.

As you'd expect from a man at the cutting edge of British comedy, Iannucci's show breaks from the stand-up norm. While Iannucci himself dismisses it as being merely "a stupid chat", his promoters call it, "More a fight-of-fancy, a bounding-around-a-stage, story-telling peculiarama."

Certainly the critics have been impressed ("Brilliantly funny" said the Evening Standard), but then that's hardly surprising since every project Iannucci touches seems to turn to gold. The difference this time is that he's split from the coterie of people with whom he has shared his previous successes.

Iannucci, Coogan and Morris, along with others such as David Schneider, Patrick Marber and Peter Baynham met when making Radio Four's 'On The Hour' and have stuck together ever since as an inseparable comedy-clique.

"The first day we met we were recording the pilot of 'On The Hour', you could tell that we were all getting on and could all understand each other, because there was a lot of improvising and spontaneity. But most importantly we all had a laugh."

And so did the audience. 'On The Hour' moved to television; changing its name to 'The Day Today' in the process, and Iannucci's Mafia never looked back. "The most creative group of comedians this decade" gushed The Telegraph, "The comedy of the moment" asserted The Independent.

"I think people talk about the comedy moment retrospectively once something has already become successful, journalists three months later say that it 'caught the mood'. But my hope is that it helps create a mood. 'But ours hasn't been the only comedy around, there's been good stuff like Reeves, and Mortimor, Harry Enfield and the Fast Show at the same time."

Iannucci is similarly humble when asked how much credit he deserves for Steve Coogan's phenomenal success. "That's for other people to judge, but I'm very proud of my input into Alan Partridge." And rightly so, but why have the British public been restricted to such miserly rations of the nation's favourite chat show host?

"It's partly for practical reasons because we all have our own ongoing projects to deal with. I'd hate to spend my life just writing Alan Partridge, there's other things I want to do and there's other things Steve wants to do. I also think part of its' strength is that he isn't on all the time. There was a gap of three years between the two series but I don't think people felt like it was that long." The comparison between Alan Partridge's continued good health and Mrs. Merton's slow death by over-kill seems to prove him right.

Iannucci says that 'I'm Alan Partridge' was his best work yet "I'm most proud of the edition where Alan was stuck in the hotel for a day with nothing to do. He got trapped in the lift walked to a petrol station and ended up getting arrested for stealing a traffic cone.

"We didn't know if 'I'm Alan Partridge' would work. There were a lot of nerves before we started filming it. Taking the sitcom route was a big risk."

They needn't have worried, the series brought Iannucci and Coogan their most enthusiastic critical acclaim to date. For Iannucci however, it is the response of the audiences that matter more than those of the critics. "I'm not a media animal, I'm not surrounded by media people so I don't get cosseted or caught-up in mutual back-slapping. I go to work on the tube and hear ordinary people talking about last night's show and that's where the satisfaction comes from, that's what makes me most proud."

The fruitful working relationship between Iannucci and Coogan is obviously borne out of strong friendship. Indeed Iannucci is too good a friend to provide an insight into Coogan's private life or personal character, the details of which have remained elusive from a media who seem desperate to discover the true nature of the man behind Partridge and Paul Calf." The press have shafted Steve in the past. He is a very private person and that's why he hides himself behind characters."

Is he anything like student hating Paul Calf in real life I inquired? "I went to University in Oxford so when Steve was doing his show there recently I gave him a tour of the Colleges. He was very suspicious and went round the place with a big grimace on his face, but in the end he said 'it's quite nice actually'. Steve isn't as working class as he likes to make out he was a drama student after all.

"I loved life at Oxford. I was quite academic, staying on there for six years doing English. I started a Ph.D. in Milton which I never finished, but I was a bit of a librarian. But what of the oppressive and snobbish campus environment? "When I arrived with my trunk on the first day, I was stood at the bottom of the stairs where I was going to live. I heard this very posh motherly voice upstairs saying 'Henrietta, where would you like me to put your fridge?' She turned out to be frightfully posh and she had a fridge! But I have to say she became one of my best friends."

Like so many Oxbridge graduated artists, Iannucci learned his trade while at University. "I did lots of creative stuff while I was there. I knew David Schneider and we did lots together. But it was the mid 80s when stand-up was the big thing so we felt slightly strange doing more character based theatrical works." Their groundwork paid off however, for by the time they emerged from university, the alternative standup scene was on the wane, leaving an opening for a new genre: character comedy. Mrs. Merton, Lilly Savage and Harry Enfield's creations all caught the boat too, but it was Iannucci and Co at the helm.

Armando Iannucci, 'Out of his Box' @ The Dancehouse Theatre, Oxford Road, Wednesday 29th Apri1, 8pm.

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© 1998 Chris Lambert