Rob Brydon

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.

Review: The Guess List

Unfortunately, no matter how entertaining some of Rob Brydon's chit-chat can be with the famous guests, The Guess List falls apart because it's not a particularly fun game and the time drags.

I quite enjoyed The Guess List, hosted by the fantastic Rob Brydon. Awkward moments aside, the jokes were consistent and it was a pretty harmless, pleasant show. What was made apparent from this first, rather tentative episode was that nobody really seemed to understand what was going on. Everyone seemed a bit confused, but happy all the same, like an extremely drunk aunt at a birthday party. To be honest, most of the show is just waffle and fodder. Don't get me wrong, it's good waffle and fodder, but it is definitely an odd format.

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".

The second series of The Trip sends Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan around Italy in the footsteps of Byron and Shelley - albeit travelling by open-top Mini Cooper and luxury sailing ship crewed by shapely, twentysomething posh girls - for more semi-improvised adventures as would-be food critics.

Once I had wiped away the mist of envy from my eyes and choked back the bile of resentment that invariably rises whenever I see the licence fee used to send celebrities to exotic locations, I rather enjoyed The Trip to Italy. The concept is inherently self-indulgent, but the two stars are undeniably good company, and there is something pleasantly relaxing about the gentle pace at which it plays out.

There are moments of high comedy, as the pair play versions of themselves as incorrigible impressionist show-offs - if you ever wanted to know what Roger Moore playing Tony Blair interrogating Saddam Hussein as Frank Spencer would sound like, this is the show for you. But there are also beautifully observed exchanges from two performers far too skilled at improvisation ever to push too hard for a laugh. As a result, their onscreen comic chemistry comes over as spontaneous, authentic and rather touching.

Ostensibly writing a food column for the Observer, Brydon and Coogan travel, banter, bicker, dine, drink and trade impersonations on an endless, unhurried loop. The format hasn't changed at all from the first series, but the weather certainly has, and so has the menu. Italy, and its food, looks glorious. If, at any point, you should tire of Messrs Brydon and Coogan's babblings, you can always try watching the programme with the sound off.

Rob Brydon's legendary geniality is exploited as the host of BBC1's new Saturday-evening game show The Guess List, in which a panel of celebrities help two contestants to answer a wide variety of wacky questions. Sound familiar? It is so obviously a rehash of Blankety Blank, it is a mystery why they didn't just call it that and be done with it.

The celebrities, it has to be said, are top-notch. That is to say, I had heard of all of them. But having recruited guests of such high calibre as Jennifer Saunders, Simon Callow and James Corden, the show gave them practically nothing to do, while the host hardly let them get a word in. Brydon was manic to the point of hyperactive from the off, and never eased up for a second. It was as though he felt a single-handed responsibility to keep the programme going - yet the more frantic his efforts, the more uncomfortable the viewing experience.

In The Trip to Italy, Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan took their competitive impersonation skills to a new level when one of them impersonated Saddam Hussein impersonating Frank Spencer, and the other impersonated Roger Moore impersonating Tony Blair.

I lost track of who was which, but it was virtuoso stuff. Meanwhile they were eating the greatest of Italian food while surrounded with British upmarket honey-blonde chalet girls.

More mature by the episode, Steve retired to bed alone for a nap. Rob pulled one of the girls but might have dished his chances by showing her a picture of his daughter. By now the chaps are so well established in their characters that they can do uncharacteristic things. I have seldom seen a British comedy series quite so inventive.