Lynn Benfield
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Lynn Benfield is a fictional character in the I'm Alan Partridge sitcom. She is played by Felicity Montagu. Montagu's other credits include Nighty Night and Bridget Jones's Diary.
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[edit] I'm Alan Partridge 1
Lynn is described in the fictional world of Alan Partridge as a fifty year old spinster who either lives with her mother (Peggy) or at least sees her everyday (this is never made explicitly clear). She earns £7,000 a year (a four-figure salary) from Alan Partridge for the services of personal assistant. Though she is only employed as Alan's P.A she is frequently seen as practically running his affairs and helping him out with his personal life, she often subconsciously slips into the role of Alan's mother doing things like buying foot powder for him, tidying up his hotel room and laying out his clothes for special occasions (such as a guest announcer at a country fayre.) There is a very vague sense that she may be attracted to Alan as she appears jealous when he says he is going to sleep with his secretary Jill, she also offers to play the role of his wife an an advert for Hamilton's water breaks, with noticeable sentiment. It is unclear how much Alan notices these pseudo-advances, or if he notices at all. Alan often gets Lynn to do his dirty work such as making her talk to his ex-wife and also making her impersonate an interviewee on his radio station after the said interviewee walked out after being insulted by him.
[edit] I'm Alan Partridge 2
Now fifty-five Lynn earns £8,000 a year, she is also seeing retired policeman and Baptist Gordon. Gordon has only just recently moved to the area which causes Alan to believe that he is a serial bigamist. Perhaps it is because of this attitude that Gordon and Alan get off to a shaky start as Gordon is seen to be angry at Alan as he believes Alan bullies Lynn and threatens Alan that if he doesn't stop being nasty to her he'll "Knock (his) block off." Alan subsequently takes this quite seriously by raising Lynn's wages to £9,500 a year. Lynn is still seen as a busy mother figure for Alan such as sorting out Alan's affairs, taking his girlfriend (Sonja) places (To London for a day because Alan hates London) and drawing a chalk penis on an old enemy of Alan's back.
She is also credited with being the researcher for Alan's 'Anglian Lives' interview with Ray Woollard (Peter Baynham)
[edit] General characteristics
Lynn is a staunch Christian of the Baptist denomination and takes the Bible and its teachings very seriously. She is often seen as timid and quiet but harbours certain outdated concepts and strong opinions most noticeably her faint sense of xenophobia when discussing the ethnicity of Jesus Christ. Alan describes her on several occasions as being like a mouse or a badger, this is justified through both her behaviour and physical appearance. She is often passive and quiet when Alan is either telling her off or saying something completely misguided and when she does take a stand with Alan she is frequently shot down with the same skewed reasoning. She is seen to be very prudish with language, sex and non-Baptist activities or beliefs, though comes across as quite an agreeable and pragmatic woman with a seemingly inexhaustable supply of patience and tact. She is probably the only person that Alan has been close to in his life for longer than a few months or years and is also the only person that Alan is above in most people's mind in the unspoken social hierarchy.
