Rob Brydon

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon to host live Q&A in cinemas

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are to host a live Q&A at cinemas across the UK on Wednesday after a feature-length screening of their BBC comedy series, The Trip To Italy.

Radio Times review

There's something acutely charmless about The Guess List. Add the merest touch of desperation and look what you've got - a Saturday-night game show. Host Rob Brydon works tremendously hard to keep the thing pelting along as he gently, and often not so gently, insults a panel of celebrity guests who this week include Nick Hewer, Helen Skelton and Eamonn Holmes.

Inevitably there's plenty of ribaldry when the guests are asked to pinpoint an embarrassing first date.

The Trip to Italy: A Popular Postmodernism

"Did you ever hear of a good sequel?" asks Rob Brydon, in the postmodern improvisational joy that is The Trip to Italy.

Radio Times review

The unlikely but lovable sitcom winds up its second series in reflective mood. There are more smiles than belly laughs as Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan's Italian travels reach Naples and they are joined by Steve's son Joe and his pregnant PA Emma.

But before the others arrive, Steve and Rob have a moment at some catacombs stacked with skulls ("It's like being at one of your gigs..."). Steve trots out the "Alas poor Yorick" speech from Hamlet and the references to a dead jester ("Where be your gibes now...?") leave Rob looking distinctly troubled.

As usual, on the surface The Trip is about seafood, wine and Roger Moore impressions; underneath it's something else altogether.

The Trip to Italy: worth the return journey?

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's food-fuelled journey through Italy has an undercurrent of despair beneath the impressions. Would you join the pair on future trips?

Exclusive clip from The Trip to Italy DVD

Need an extra helping of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's brilliantly tasty gastronomic tour of Italy? Then wait no longer. The DVD of their latest series, The Trip To Italy, is out next Monday, but just to whet your appetite here is one of the previously unseen extras from it in which affable but-not-quite-as-affable as his TV persona Rob Brydon persuades Steve Coogan to do an impression of former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock as they cruise through Tuscany.

Why does Rob Brydon keep trying too hard?

He's not a scurrying puppy like Michael McIntyre, more a comedy terrier, biting the ankles of a joke until it works.

Radio Times review

At the beginning of this episode I started to think I might have had enough of comedians trading impressions in Italian beauty spots. By the end, I was completely converted again. The series always hovers on the edge of nothingy, self-indulgent banter, but it always saves itself and delivers terrific belly laughs alongside unexpected little shots of melancholy.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are at Pompeii, wearing appalling shorts (Coogan's are those baggy, halfway-between-knee and-ankle ones) and reflecting on the disaster there. By the remains of one victim, in a display case, Rob does his "small man in a box" voice and it feels crass; but then it shades into a lovely illustration of how he struggles to take anything seriously - he's a prisoner of his own comic riffs.

That undertow of sadness only adds to the comedy, which this week covers Humphrey Bogart, Frankie Howerd and, briefly, Ken Bruce.

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.

Have you been watching ... The Trip to Italy?

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan's mockumentary sees the comedians impersonating Michael Caine and Roger Moore to humorous effect - but it's their take on their own personas that is most compulsive viewing.