The Trip

The Trip to Italy - holiday fashion lessons for men

While Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon improvise their lines, their outfits have been planned to a T. Please take note, gentlemen.

Exclusive clip from The Trip to Italy DVD

Need an extra helping of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's brilliantly tasty gastronomic tour of Italy? Then wait no longer. The DVD of their latest series, The Trip To Italy, is out next Monday, but just to whet your appetite here is one of the previously unseen extras from it in which affable but-not-quite-as-affable as his TV persona Rob Brydon persuades Steve Coogan to do an impression of former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock as they cruise through Tuscany.

After last week's episode, in which the reappearance of Steve's assistant Emma and Yolanda the photographer intensified the one-upmanship between Steve and Rob to grotesque levels, this week's instalment is a more amicable affair. Highlights include a day trip to Pompeii, which allows Coogan to do his Frankie Howerd impressions, and riffs on Gore Vidal and popular singers (Rob: "Where do you stand on Michael Bublé?" Steve: "His windpipe").

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.

This second run of Coogan and Brydon's semi-scripted comedy has seen the pair amble around Italian gastronomic hotspots while coming to terms with saggy middle age. Not that it's morose: the two sparring with competitive impersonations and childish musings - such as a back-and-forth about eating Mo Farah's legs - form the backbone of the show. At its best, it's quite possibly the funniest thing on telly.

Rob informs Steve of his audition for a Michael Mann flick and asks for his assistance with an audition reel, mainly by begrudgingly holding an iPad aloft. Adding to a torrid day for a put-upon Coogan, an awkward lunch with a former flame follows. The plot scattered throughout the irksome mimicry keeps this worthy of a space among your series links, but it's tempting to wonder if a single feature-length edit of the series (as was done for the American market) would be preferable.

Radio Times review

The relentless, competitive maleness of The Trip to Italy is leavened by the arrival of Coogan's chirpy PA Emma and Spanish photographer Yolanda, who are in Rome to do a photoshoot with the boys.

The quartet have romantic history, as anyone who saw the first series will know, and there are some tender flirtations. But the group are easy with one another as they explore the lives of doomed poets Keats and Shelley.

Of course, impressions are never far away and when someone mentions Sicily, Brydon launches into his Marlon Brando/Godfather in a riff that turns into an extraordinary little scene about Jimmy Savile.

Of all the episodes so far, this feels closest to self-indulgence, but it's hard to sniff at anything that features Steve Coogan doing Robert de Niro as a foul-mouthed Frankenstein's monster.

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.

Lots of priceless moments and lines in The Trip to Italy (BBC), including the real Steve Coogan being a sort of fictional (although probably pretty real) Steve Coogan, being Roger Moore, being Alanis Morissette: "And I'm here to remind you/ Of the mess you left when you went away" ... hahaha. It's more melancholic this time round, and funnier. I think it's the best thing on TV right now.