Felicity Montagu gives supporting characters motives of their own, most clearly in Lynn Benfield's complicated devotion to Alan Partridge. We value that care, though familiar company cannot make up for missing jokes.
Fi1m perspective
Lynn Benfield is loyal to Alan Partridge and quite capable of manipulating him. Felicity Montagu allows for both, giving Steve Coogan someone with her own motives to play against. We rate her for taking such care over a character who could have been no more than a useful person for Alan to talk at. That care accords with her use of improvisation and backstories to build a character.
The breakthrough was I'm Alan Partridge (1997–2002), and Lynn has remained her defining part. Perpetua in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Sue Forks in the dark comedy Nighty Night (2004) extended the work beyond that partnership. Those parts belong to a career spent largely in ensembles, where Montagu's timing and attention to what goes unsaid are useful assets. The later role of Margo Martins in Beyond Paradise (2023) gives her a main part in television drama.
In How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) (2025), Montagu helps keep an uneven mockumentary watchable. Alongside Katherine Kelly as Katrina, her Lynn provides welcome company when the central premise begins to feel stretched. We were glad to see her because that familiarity made the thin stretches easier to sit through. Making a familiar character welcome again is worth something. Coogan still makes Alan worth spending time with, but the supporting cast is doing work that the script ought to be doing.
Our reservation is with how much the series asks that pleasure to cover. Too many passages need another joke, and liking Lynn does not make those passages funny. We would not blame Montagu for the shortage, though affection for her character should not spare the writing scrutiny. For anyone following her work, the partnership with Coogan remains the sensible starting point. Approach the 2025 return for the supporting performances, with modest expectations of the material.
Biography
Felicity Montagu (born 12 September 1960) is an English actress. She trained at Loughborough University and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, and began her career on stage and in BBC Radio 4 comedies.
She is best known for playing Lynn Benfield, the long-suffering personal assistant to Alan Partridge, a role she originated in the 1990s and has reprised in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013) and the 2025 BBC series How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge). Other screen credits include Perpetua in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Anne in Skins (2007), and Margo Martins in Beyond Paradise (2023–present). She has also appeared in The End of the F*ing World (2017), Censor (2021) and Dad's Army (2016).
