A friend loaned me a DVD “I’m Alan Partridge,” a classic British comedy that nobody in America’s ever heard of. His character is the subject of a movie that’s playing soon at the New York Film Festival.

It’s very, very funny. My inital observation is that Steve Carell, in The Office, must have been cribbing more from Steve Coogan, a.k.a Alan Partridge, than from Ricky Gervais of the original “Office.” Carell’s awkward man-child is pure Partridge.

The only problem with “I’m Alan Partridge” is the canned laugh track, which must have seemed obligatory when it premiered in 1997. Presumably the movie avoids this problem, which I’ll verify later this month.