Alanis Morissette

Coogan & Brydon send Alanis Morissette up the charts

One of the more surprising new entries in the UK albums chart on Sunday was Morissette's debut album, Jagged Little Pill, which appeared at No 40. It seems reasonable to assume this is the result of her music appearing in The Trip to Italy, playing on the car stereo as Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan drive from nice restaurant to nice restaurant.

Michael Hann, The Guardian, 29th April 2014

Lots of priceless moments and lines in The Trip to Italy (BBC), including the real Steve Coogan being a sort of fictional (although probably pretty real) Steve Coogan, being Roger Moore, being Alanis Morissette: "And I'm here to remind you/ Of the mess you left when you went away" ... hahaha. It's more melancholic this time round, and funnier. I think it's the best thing on TV right now.

Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, 19th April 2014

Radio Times review

The comic riffs and bickering are lower-key this week. We start with Rob Brydon waking up in bed next to the blonde girl from the last episode, the one on the yacht, and we gather from the expletives he's not best pleased with himself. Perhaps that helps things take a mournful turn, as he and travelling companion Steve Coogan reflect on Shelley's funeral pyre and death generally.

In one of his extended flights of fancy, Rob imagines Steve on his deathbed, so incapacitated he can't even grope his attractive nurse. As if to retaliate (and there's a lot of that) Steve later reflects on his "semi-justified reputation for being something of a lothario".

But over and above the nicely observed riffs on ageing and celebrity there are, of course, the impressions: this week Steve reads the guide book as first James Mason and then, brilliantly, Neil Kinnock. Plus, "Roger Moore sings the very best of Alanis Morissette".

David Butcher, Radio Times, 18th April 2014