Rob Brydon

The Trip (BBC2) got a thumbs-down in its first week, with many unable to see the point of sending Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon up north to eat and drink themselves silly while trying to outdo one another with their impressions. Well . . . the point is that it's one of the funniest things on TV. Yes, it can get a bit too cute at times, but the blurring of real and scripted identities gives the comedy real edge. The highlight this week was Brydon asking Coogan how it felt to have a career in nosedive after massive success early on; Coogan's reply was that it was better than always having been a mediocrity. I'd say it took a lot of guts on both their parts to leave that in.

Steve Coogan, fretful, vain and self-absorbed, thinks he might have met the female photographer who has arrived to take his picture somewhere before. This kind of thing is always a worry to the comedian, who tells his agent, "They [people in general] remember meeting me, but I don't remember meeting them." It's another corking instalment of Michael Winterbottom's funny, acute improvised observation of the odd, frequently jagged friendship between Coogan and Rob Brydon, his travelling companion on a northern road trip reviewing restaurants. Brydon is the more appealing, doing impressions during a difficult dinner with a peevish Coogan, his agent and said photographer. There's a brittleness to the fictionalised (or is it?) Brydon/Coogan relationship that gives The Trip its delicious edge.

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan are comedians of sufficient calibre that this series, in which they play versions of themselves on a restaurant-reviewing tour of the Lake District, was always likely to be funny. Four episodes in, it is revealing depth too. They eat at Hipping Hall in Lancashire, where they are joined by Coogan's assistant Emma (Claire Keelan) and a Spanish photographer, Yolanda (Marta Barrio). Coogan and Brydon revive the battle of celebrity impressions they fought in the first episode, amid increasing sexual tensions. "Is there a condition in Spain of Autistic Impressionist?" Coogan asks Yolanda, of Brydon. Brydon responds by quoting Alan Partridge at Coogan. "I'd quote your own stuff back at you," replies Coogan. "But I can't remember any of it."

Whoever thought that watching one person give a lift to another person would be so entertaining? This week Robert Llewellyn gives a ride to Jeremy Hardy and Rob Brydon, and the continuing theme through both interviews is taking the mickey out of Tony Blair.

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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon arrive in the Lake District on the third leg of their blokey odyssey reviewing restaurants in country houses. In what turns out to be quite a commercial for the Holbeck Ghyll hotel near Lake Windermere, the pair bicker again over dinner; Coogan, insecure and nervy, Brydon slightly precious and anxious to please. It's all terribly knowing, self-referential and, possibly, more in love with itself than is healthy. But I laughed a lot - proper laughter, too: actually out loud. You don't get that with BBC2 comedies, as a rule. Or with BBC1 comedies, come to that. Coogan and Brydon are a perfect brittle partnership. There's also a slightly tragic edge as we watch two middle-aged men needle each other ("You can't treat your entire life like a Radio 4 panel show"), while at the same time they seek some kind of affirmation. Smashing.

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan - here playing characters loosely based on themselves - are superb comic actors, but there are times when The Trip feels like not much more than two middle-aged men doing silly voices at each other. Tonight, the pair visit a hotel in the Lake District.

I was hoping to add The Trip to my weekly review roster, but after sampling episode 2's "L'Enclume" I have a feeling that would be pointless. Not that this is a bad comedy, because I find it amiable and entertaining, but it's beholden to a rigid formula so far: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon travel to a swanky restaurant in the idyllic northern countryside, they have dinner while teasing each other and competing with impressions, and then retire to bed after calling their other halves.

Consequently, I feel like I've said everything I want to say last week. "L'Enclume" was effectively more of the same, albeit with a different set of impressions for Coogan and Brydon to do battle with. I particularly liked their attempt to do the best naturalistic Bond villain, Coogan's insight into the acting style of Richard Gere (look into the middle distance and act like you've just remembered something), and the observation that Anthony Hopkins isn't afraid to touch his own face. I could happily watch Coogan and Brydon chew the fat, half-scripted or not, for a very long time. The opening dream sequence, guest-starring Ben Stiller, was also a fun surprise, and I like it when the story touches on the disparities between Coogan and Brydon. The former an inveterate bachelor, the wrong side of 40, desperate to get himself a Hollywood career equal to his hero Jack Lemmon; the latter a more satisfied Welshman seen using his talents to charm his wife over the phone.

The Trip is a series I'm definitely going to see through to its final destination, but I hope the journey's a touch more unpredictable than episode 2 felt most of the time.