Tumperkin gets evangelical again

Oh my word! I am so enjoying The Trip on BBC just now! I'm not sure if you can even get this outside the UK.

If you caught A Cock and Bull Story, a Michael Winterbottom film, a few years ago, you might have an idea of what I mean when I say that the central conceit is that Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play versions of themselves in this series. Steve Coogan (possibly known to some of you only as a slightly puzzling British actor who has cropped in films like Night At the Museum as the tiny centurion) has supposedly been asked to act as a food review critic for the Observer on a trip round the north of England. He was supposed to be accompanied by his beautiful American girlfriend but she doesn't come when she gets a career break and so he asks Rob Brydon instead. The whole series is them travelling around together, going to fabulous restaurants and talking about pretty much everything.

As a special treat they do lots of impressions (and competing impressions) of various actors complete with dialogues on what they are doing. The video embedded below begins with a brilliant exchange of James Bond impressions - Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan - seaguing into Liam Neeson, Antony Hopkins, Al Pacino and then, brilliantly by Steve Coogan, Richard Gere.



What I really love about this series though is not just these brilliant comedic exchanges but the real pathos (in the Jack Lemmon sense spoken about by Coogan in the video). Brydon is portrayed as a happily married, domesticated man who is content with his cuddly public image though somewhat resentful of Coogan's suggestion that he is mediocre. Coogan is portrayed as a somewhat rootless type with bigger artistic ambitions and a streak of shallow egoism. How true this is of their real selves is unclear. In the latest episode, Holbeck Ghyll, this is beautifully played with and in just 30 mins, Winterbottom asks questions about what art is, whether domestic happiness is the enemy of art, what happiness is, whether and how you can find it or if it is only be found in yourself. And without explicitly posing any of those questions even once.

Both Coogan and Brydon just shine: Brydon as the happy but occasionally defensive housewives' favourite and Coogan as the misanthropic comic genius.

Seriously, watch the video. It's great.