Steve Coogan

TV review: The Trip

I think it might be brilliant. I say "think" because I still can't believe Steve Coogan's audacity, and the apparent indulgence.

I was hoping to add The Trip to my weekly review roster, but after sampling episode 2's "L'Enclume" I have a feeling that would be pointless. Not that this is a bad comedy, because I find it amiable and entertaining, but it's beholden to a rigid formula so far: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon travel to a swanky restaurant in the idyllic northern countryside, they have dinner while teasing each other and competing with impressions, and then retire to bed after calling their other halves.

Consequently, I feel like I've said everything I want to say last week. "L'Enclume" was effectively more of the same, albeit with a different set of impressions for Coogan and Brydon to do battle with. I particularly liked their attempt to do the best naturalistic Bond villain, Coogan's insight into the acting style of Richard Gere (look into the middle distance and act like you've just remembered something), and the observation that Anthony Hopkins isn't afraid to touch his own face. I could happily watch Coogan and Brydon chew the fat, half-scripted or not, for a very long time. The opening dream sequence, guest-starring Ben Stiller, was also a fun surprise, and I like it when the story touches on the disparities between Coogan and Brydon. The former an inveterate bachelor, the wrong side of 40, desperate to get himself a Hollywood career equal to his hero Jack Lemmon; the latter a more satisfied Welshman seen using his talents to charm his wife over the phone.

The Trip is a series I'm definitely going to see through to its final destination, but I hope the journey's a touch more unpredictable than episode 2 felt most of the time.

The Trip episode 2 review: L'Enclume

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Steve Coogan: 'The Trip was gruelling'

Steve Coogan has said that filming The Trip was at times a lengthily and uncomfortable experience.

Director Michael Winterbottom conjured a pleasing blur of fact and fiction in The Trip, an improvised new comedy starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as versions of themselves on a tour of rural northern restaurants, supposedly for The Observer's magazine. Trying to keep it real made for a flattish sort of badinage to start with, but their personalities were eventually set jousting, Brydon with his impersonation of Ronnie Corbett over the scallops and soup, the antsy, sardonic Coogan mulish in his refusal to be amused.

Temperamentally, Coogan belongs to that class of comedian who would rather be thought a genius than a clown, but it wasn't long before the pair were into a rampant contest for best Michael Caine impression ("Shall I prepare the Batmobile, master Bruce?"). Coogan won it on finesse and followed up with a superb Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh, but you couldn't stop Brydon, who now hilariously had his teeth into Al Pacino (in Heat the movie and, less congruously, Heat the magazine) before morphing into a staccato Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Even Coogan was smiling.

I could have watched more, but they had the other diners to think about. Were they real or were they actors? The food looked real and the restaurant - the Inn at Whitewell, near Clitheroe - is real. It's even true (according to my wife, whose friend Jackie frequently sneaks off there for a quiet coffee) that you can't get a mobile signal. In an unexpectedly touching moment, we saw Coogan tramping up the darkening hill in the cold to phone his girlfriend, who was supposed to have come with him on the trip ("I wanted to show her the north - a piece of me...") but had gone home to America instead. I don't think she was real, though I could have believed she was. Perhaps he'll find happiness with Rob. They're an odd couple but quite perfect in a way.

I don't think I'll be rushing back to The Trip, which started its six-episode run on Monday. Those who've seen Michael Winterbottom's film A Cock and Bull Story, a surreal treatment of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, will recall the droll rivalry of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, playing themselves when the periwigs came off. Watching Coogan's face as he realised Brydon could do a better impression of him than he could of himself was priceless. Winterbottom now films the two funny men going on a road trip in a Land Rover. Coogan has invited Brydon to join him on a one-week restaurant tour of the North for a Sunday newspaper. He needs a companion because he's split from his girlfriend, Mischa.

So here they are, our gigglesome pair, at The Inn at Whitewell, booking in and - oh no! - there's only one room and they may have to share a bed! Brydon is fine about this. Coogan isn't. "You might touch my bottom," he says. They joke about child abuse, swap photos of their children (not at all inappropriate) and compete, over dinner, to see who can do a better Michael Caine impression. Some needling between them goes unexplained. Coogan doesn't seem to like Brydon much, and criticises him a lot - so why has he invited him on the trip? But the conversations are so desultory, and the straining after wit ("Is there such a thing as an autistic impressionist? That's you") so plain dull, you feel they deserve each other's leaden company. I can't wait to read the restaurant reviews.

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The Trip episode 1 review

Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom reunite in this understated but frequently funny series opener to The Trip...

I don't know if you've seen Michael Winterbottom's fine Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, but there's a funny scene at the end of the film when Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, both talented impressionists, are trying to out-Al Pacino each other. Well The Trip (BBC2), also directed by Winterbottom, is kind of that scene turned into a six-part road movie with a bit of restaurant criticism thrown in. Coogan and Brydon are driving around the north of England in a Range Rover, supposedly reviewing gourmet establishments for The Observer, while also addressing their midlife problems, indulging in some awkward male bonding, and continuing the battle of the impressions from the previous film.

I'm not entirely sure whether they're being themselves or engaging in some kind of self-parody. It's a bit wanky and self-indulgent to be honest. There is the odd genuinely funny moment - the bad-tempered Michael Caine-off is good - but mostly I felt I wasn't really in on the joke. Possibly the only people who are in on it are Coogan and Brydon.