Steve Coogan

Steve Coogan interview

The hideous Alan Partridge made Steve Coogan famous, but far from happy. Now it seems he's in danger of being both.

Director Michael Winterbottom conjured a pleasing blur of fact and fiction in The Trip, an improvised new comedy starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as versions of themselves on a tour of rural northern restaurants, supposedly for The Observer's magazine. Trying to keep it real made for a flattish sort of badinage to start with, but their personalities were eventually set jousting, Brydon with his impersonation of Ronnie Corbett over the scallops and soup, the antsy, sardonic Coogan mulish in his refusal to be amused.

Temperamentally, Coogan belongs to that class of comedian who would rather be thought a genius than a clown, but it wasn't long before the pair were into a rampant contest for best Michael Caine impression ("Shall I prepare the Batmobile, master Bruce?"). Coogan won it on finesse and followed up with a superb Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh, but you couldn't stop Brydon, who now hilariously had his teeth into Al Pacino (in Heat the movie and, less congruously, Heat the magazine) before morphing into a staccato Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Even Coogan was smiling.

I could have watched more, but they had the other diners to think about. Were they real or were they actors? The food looked real and the restaurant - the Inn at Whitewell, near Clitheroe - is real. It's even true (according to my wife, whose friend Jackie frequently sneaks off there for a quiet coffee) that you can't get a mobile signal. In an unexpectedly touching moment, we saw Coogan tramping up the darkening hill in the cold to phone his girlfriend, who was supposed to have come with him on the trip ("I wanted to show her the north - a piece of me...") but had gone home to America instead. I don't think she was real, though I could have believed she was. Perhaps he'll find happiness with Rob. They're an odd couple but quite perfect in a way.

I don't think I'll be rushing back to The Trip, which started its six-episode run on Monday. Those who've seen Michael Winterbottom's film A Cock and Bull Story, a surreal treatment of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, will recall the droll rivalry of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, playing themselves when the periwigs came off. Watching Coogan's face as he realised Brydon could do a better impression of him than he could of himself was priceless. Winterbottom now films the two funny men going on a road trip in a Land Rover. Coogan has invited Brydon to join him on a one-week restaurant tour of the North for a Sunday newspaper. He needs a companion because he's split from his girlfriend, Mischa.

So here they are, our gigglesome pair, at The Inn at Whitewell, booking in and - oh no! - there's only one room and they may have to share a bed! Brydon is fine about this. Coogan isn't. "You might touch my bottom," he says. They joke about child abuse, swap photos of their children (not at all inappropriate) and compete, over dinner, to see who can do a better Michael Caine impression. Some needling between them goes unexplained. Coogan doesn't seem to like Brydon much, and criticises him a lot - so why has he invited him on the trip? But the conversations are so desultory, and the straining after wit ("Is there such a thing as an autistic impressionist? That's you") so plain dull, you feel they deserve each other's leaden company. I can't wait to read the restaurant reviews.

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The Trip episode 1 review

Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom reunite in this understated but frequently funny series opener to The Trip...

I don't know if you've seen Michael Winterbottom's fine Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, but there's a funny scene at the end of the film when Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, both talented impressionists, are trying to out-Al Pacino each other. Well The Trip (BBC2), also directed by Winterbottom, is kind of that scene turned into a six-part road movie with a bit of restaurant criticism thrown in. Coogan and Brydon are driving around the north of England in a Range Rover, supposedly reviewing gourmet establishments for The Observer, while also addressing their midlife problems, indulging in some awkward male bonding, and continuing the battle of the impressions from the previous film.

I'm not entirely sure whether they're being themselves or engaging in some kind of self-parody. It's a bit wanky and self-indulgent to be honest. There is the odd genuinely funny moment - the bad-tempered Michael Caine-off is good - but mostly I felt I wasn't really in on the joke. Possibly the only people who are in on it are Coogan and Brydon.

All anyone really wants from Steve Coogan is Alan Partridge. And the fact that he knows it, that Norwich's finest swings like a comedy albatross around his neck, underpins the arch air of knowing antagonism he brings to The Trip (BBC2). Here's an anti-comedy if ever there was one.

Featuring Coogan and Rob Brydon playing heightened versions of themselves (their description), The Trip wilfully blurs fact and fiction as this mismatched pair, Brydon's innate amiability crossing verbal swords with Coogan's surly ego, set off on a restaurant review tour of the rural north of England on behalf of a Sunday magazine. It's a perfect set-up, egotistical and pointless, given neither of them knows much about food, which fuels a subtle meander around the oxbow lake of celebrity ego.

Coogan brutally sends up his image with a performance that's so deeply dislikeable you end up admiring his ability to be so sublimely cussed.

'I don't want to do British TV - I want to do films, good films,' he whines to his agent on the phone and, even though you know it's an exercise in fiction and not reality TV, it does feel, well, real.

It's a bumpy trip and no mistake. The laughs are of the dark and despairing kind, built mainly around the pair of them sat at a restaurant table battering each other with impressions, like Ultimate Cage Fighter played out by the voices of Michael Caine and Anthony Hopkins. It's a send-up but it's tongue-in-spleen rather than tongue-in-cheek.

There's a slightly irksome air of self-congratulation but it's hard to take against a show where Coogan chooses Joy Division's Atmosphere ('don't walk away... in silence') as the perfect soundtrack for cruising through the verdant English landscape. Makes a change from The Lark Ascending, that's for sure.

Here's a change of tack for Michael Winterbottom, director of 24 Hour Party People and The Killer Inside Me - a low-key semi-improvised sitcom. In this new six-parter, he directs Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictional versions of themselves as they traipse around the north of England having adventures after Coogan is commissioned to review half a dozen restaurants for a Sunday newspaper - and this opener yields funny and occasionally touching returns.

For people of a certain age, the idea of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan making a low-key sitcom directed by Michael Winterbottom, where they travel the north of England insulting each other, is almost too pleasant to be true. And indeed, when approaching The Trip, you should manage expectations. It's not laugh a minute stuff, not by a long chalk.

But there is great stuff involved. It's a show about the spaces around laughter. The reactions - or lack of them - are brilliant. The camera focuses on Coogan sitting stony-faced as Brydon runs through yet another round of impressions. That's funny. Coogan flirting uncomfortably with the staff is brilliant. And his grotesque arrogance is always juxtaposed by the way Brydon's ingénue refuses to be bowed by his 'tortured' character.

"You can't go through life as if it's all a Radio 4 panel show." - "Bzzzz. Yes, you can." And if that doesn't make you laugh, then you can always speculate on how genuine the relationships are.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have struck gold with this new series. Not only is it a breath of fresh air in the schedules, it also looks like the most fun two pals can ever have making a television programme.

The two protagonists are filmed chewing the fat and gulping down first-class food on a culinary tour of the north of England. How hard can life be?

What's that? A script? Oh, there's no script, this is improvised so there's no need to worry about your lines. Just sit back, scoff the delicious scran, knock back a glass or two of Pinot Grigio and let the banter flow.

It's a conversation which has probably been heard countless times before in every pub in the country. Two mates, chatting and making each other laugh, when one says: "You know what, we should be on the telly, this is great stuff, funnier than half the rubbish on the box." Only this time, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon had the clout to actually make it into a show.

The premise is Rob and Steve, playing themselves, review restaurants for a Sunday paper. It was planned as a romantic trip for Steve and his girlfriend but after she dumped him he's forced to call upon his pal Rob to join him.

Instead of candlelight dinners and seductive musings, we have two mates discussing the questions of life over a chocolate pudding.

Fans of Michael Winterbottom's A Cock and Bull Story will be familiar with the format (it also featured the pair playing themselves). For those unfamiliar with the film, just think of a cross between Curb Your Enthusiasm and the Great British Menu with a light dusting of The Office.