Steve Coogan

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.

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.

Say what you like about Rob Brydon - and I certainly plan to - but he hosts a brain-ruining celebrity quiz show with aplomb. Those hours spent remaining cheerful while dining opposite Steve Coogan's wet-weekend-in-Ancoats face on The Trip to Italy are certainly paying dividends.

How bad is The Guess List (BBC1)? It's as likely as Michael McIntyre's chatshow to make it to a second series. It makes Would I Lie to You?, Brydon's other quiz show, seem like a work of shattering genius.

That said, I couldn't look away. "How lovely to be this close to a fox and not worry it's going to sniff round your bins," said Brydon introducing his first celebrity guest, Emilia Fox. "I speak for everybody when I say I loved The Vicar of Dibley," he said, introducing Jennifer Saunders. He went on with similar amiable insults to the other usual suspects (Simon Callow, Louis Smith, James Corden), while they kept their smiles mirthlessly frozen. If there isn't yet a Bafta for best rictus in quiz show adversity, it is only a matter of time.

The idea is, five celebrities come up with a plausible answer to a question, and then two contestants have to decide which, if any of those suggestions, is most plausible. For example: "According to a poll, what should old people do three times a week to help them live longer?" "Tango," said Callow, insanely. "Orgasm," said Corden, sensibly. "Exercise," said Smith, boringly. The answer? Oh come on! It's have sex.

Only one of the contestants seemed to have trouble with The Guess List's concept. Naturally, she won. But then she also told us she'd moved from Birmingham to Australia after watching Wanted Down Under, which is the very definition of madness.

Celebrity input seemed so superfluous that the show could readily have been renamed Pointless Celebrities. Here's my question: "Which of the following collective nouns is the odd one out: A) murder of crows; B) whoop of gorillas; C) busyness of ferrets; D) pointlessness of celebrities?" Answer: D) I want to hear more from the other three.

For all its obvious charms, the first run of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's improvised sitcom did sometimes seem like little more than a Parmesan-crisp thin excuse for its stars to gorge on high-end scran. Credit all the Mediterranean cuisine being scarfed down or just tighter direction from Michael Winterbottom, but this sequel outing to Italy feels more substantial. Tonight's episode features a plot, with the pair venturing to Shelley's house by boat, and Brydon chirpsing one of the crew. Impressions galore - Tom Jones, Pierce Brosnan - too.

Radio Times review

It's pure pleasure, this. Something so seemingly simple really shouldn't work as well at it does, but boy is it funny. Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan - or the versions they play of themselves - have reached San Fruttuoso in Liguria on their tour of Italy.

They take a beautiful yacht to a restaurant on a pebbled cove where, over lunch, they do impressions. Quite why two men doing silly voices filmed with the production values of an arthouse movie is so funny, Lord knows.

There's Steve doing Saddam Hussein's Frank Spencer impression or Rob doing Roger Moore playing Tony Blair. There's a lovely bit about what the different intonations that newsreaders use mean.

But underneath the comedy back-and-forth there's a poignant undertow about middle-aged friendship and the status games men play. It's cleverly done and not quite like anything else, ever.

What The Trip To Italy tells us about male friendship

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's gently competitive riffs and references highlight the changing composition of modern male relationships.

Rob Brydon: comedy, politics & dining with Steve Coogan

Lazy criticism, women on comedy panel shows and intimations of mortality... As he chews the fat with Steve Coogan in another series of The Trip, the new prince of Saturday-night TV confesses that he has a lot on his plate.

The Trip to Italy was travel porn with smiles. Knowing smirks, occasional laughy guffaws: but good smart tetchy humour throughout, as Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon reunited to busk off each other's ego - quite how close to those being their alter-egos is uncertain, though I suspect the difference has long been moot - but this time in Italy, eating roisteringly good food in the famous Trattoria della Posta in Langhe (near Barolo, yum, and splendid it looked) and alarming only slightly the lieges with sudden impressions of Ronnie Corbett, Al Pacino or, wonderfully improvised, mumbling Batman characters. Never less than clever, and promises much as the weeks roll on, not least the glorious intercut views of red-boiling kitchens and sweet, warm seas.

Apparently this paper, The Observer, sent both of them there as food/holiday critics. Not true (or is it? Ref! I haven't had a hol for three years). One thing's certain. We did send Kim Philby as a correspondent to Beirut, where he was finally cornered by his friend Elliot. We were founded in 1791; occasional mistakes have been made.

The Trip - or, as it's now titled, The Trip to Italy - returned on Friday on BBC Two. Essentially it's the same show: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing caricatures of themselves, talk rubbish and swap impressions in restaurants. It's very funny.

Now and again it threatens to turn into a deeper, more mature sort of programme, about Coogan and Brydon's relationships with their families.
Personally I'd rather it didn't. I could easily take half an hour of solid nonsense from them. There's almost no plot, but in the interests of more nonsense I'd accept less.

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