Michael Winterbottom

Maverick film director Michael Winterbottom hops genres with exhilarating ease. Now he offers a uniquely British spin on the road movie. The Trip premiered earlier this year as a feature film, but the BBC has opted to air it as a six-part comedy-drama. The unhurried, graceful style of this first episode suggests it was a wise decision. Playing semi-fictionalised versions of themselves, comedians Steve Coogan (still best-known for I'm Alan Partridge) and Rob Brydon (Gavin & Stacey, Marion and Geoff, QI) spar to perfection as reluctant travel companions. Coogan is asked by a national newspaper to tour the North and review restaurants. When his girlfriend backs out of accompanying him, Coogan begrudgingly asks Brydon to come along instead. The largely improvised dialogue allows the pair to play off their public personae to great effect. Coogan is neurotic and gnarly. The affable Brydon has an endearingly sentimental streak, eager to please his sardonic friend. Their gently antagonistic relationship is beautifully realised over the course of lunch at The Inn at Whitewell in Lancashire. A typically scattershot exchange, in which the duo try to top each other's impersonations of Michael Caine and Anthony Hopkins, provides the episode's comic highlight. Winterbottom intersperses their dialogue with lingering shots of the Inn's elegant dining room and exquisite food, and, outside, a glorious expansive backdrop of rolling hills.

Toby Dantzic, The Telegraph, 29th October 2010

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are reunited... to do lunch

Comedians are cast as Observer restaurant writers in Michael Winterbottom's TV sitcom probing the world of foodies.

Vanessa Thorpe, The Observer, 25th July 2010