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The Trip to Greece: like watching the most entertaining people you know dominate a dinner party

Coogan and Brydon continue to aggressively impersonate Michael Caine over risotto – and yet, within that, there is art

Ludicrous to think that it has been 10 years since The Trip first aired, a movie-in-the-shape-of-a-TV-show where Rob Brydon annoyed Steve Coogan around the Pennines, for no reason, while they slowly ate food. There is no way of describing The Trip without it sounding featherlight and pointless – “Two men approach their 50s by aggressively impersonating Michael Caine ” – but to love The Trip, as I unashamedly do, is to watch it first-hand, to consume it, to let it wash over you like a wave. Yes: a vast percentage of the show’s four episodic series is just Rob Brydon licking his lips and shouting: “WHATTYA GOT?” at a succession of politely smiling waitresses. But somehow within that there is art.

The Trip to Greece (Tuesday, 10pm, Sky One) is just every other series of The Trip, then, though this time in Greece. Brydon again plays an amped-up version of himself, clanging on the verge of annoying, seemingly missing two or three of humanity’s core social nodes, always singing that same song, a Ronnie Corbett impression that goes on too long; while Coogan does the same, playing himself-but-not-himself, the chip-shouldered, fractious actor who takes driving very seriously and always seems on the verge of a full-blown temper tantrum.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Vvc0hg
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