The Trip

Review: The Trip The Greece - Sky One

I'm going to do a thing that I don't think I've ever seen a critic do before. I'm going to say that my review was wrong. When I reviewed the first episode of the latest series of The Trip, set in Turkey and Greece, I wrote how I was disappointed by it. Having watched the first episode I felt that the tone had changed. There had always been a running theme about the rivalry between Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon but here I thought there was too much needle and nastiness. The joke wasn't all that funny any more. But that review was only based on the opening episode.

TV review: The Trip To Greece

It has got to the point, in The Trip To Greece, now on its fourth series, where the only joke is how awful Coogan is. I know it is meant to be a joke, but I'm beginning to think I'd much rather watch Brydon alone, or two Brydons talking to each other about something that isn't anything to do with Coogan for a moment, please God.

The Trip To Greece is Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan's last outing as micro-upped versions of themselves, commissioned to jaunt with wit and impunity, and eat daringly expensive, mouthwatering food, around the loveliest locations in Europe, by something called the Observer. (I bloody wish. Even Jay Rayner has to keep the bus receipts to break even, and regurgitate neglected starters to the newsdesk like a cormorant.)

And it's all very spoilt and very lovely, with just-so direction by Michael Winterbottom and music by Michael Nyman, but it's probably about time for a lie-down for this unlikeliest of hits. The impressions-off still impress - the pair, sitting outside the Hotel Lesbian, imaging Moore-as-Bond faced in the 70s with a lesbian - evinced guilty chortles, but even Coogan ponders whether they should still be trying Ronnie Corbett. The tiny premise is recreating Homer's Odyssey, so we get way too much bloody Byron, but also some teeny and huggable knowledge and insights amid swank hotels and to-die-for balcony lunches.

The Trip to Greece review

This Greek Odyssey is delicious even before we get to the food.

The Trip To Greece review

Very sad, very funny television from two of Britain's best comic performers.

The Trip To Greece review

Several times, Brydon's inspired improvisations reduced Coogan to authentically helpless mirth.

TV review: The Trip, series 4, episode 1

It's a gentle, warm affair, and though if it's a series you've not had any time for then this latest instalment won't win you over. But for fans it's a delightful half hour spent in the company of two masters of comedy, who talk about a number of fascinating subjects and four series in even though the concept is a simple one it's not something I'm getting bored of in the slightest, to the extent that it will be a real shame if they don't ever do any more after this.

How death enlivened British TV comedy

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have gone all existential in The Trip to Greece. But they're far from the only British comics riffing on the brevity of our existence

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan are back to play lightly fictionalised versions of themselves for the fourth outing of their series, a whirlwind recreation of Odysseus's 10-year trip through Greece. Beginning in Assos in Turkey and undertaking another series of gourmet meals, there are, of course, the impressions of Ronnie Corbett, Stan Laurel and Tom Hardy to contend with, as the pair bicker and meander their way through discussions on the nature of acting and the potential press response to their deaths.

How comedy for men became touchy-feely

A more authentic, softer side to men is being reflected and celebrated on screen in ways it never used to be. Ben Dowell gets a warm, fuzzy glow.