Buyers of this box set, beware. There is only one way to watch The Trip and The Trip to Italy, and that is in small doses.
Viewed episodically, week by week, the shows have a travelogue quality, a nostalgic charm consisting of two old-hand comics jousting genially via the medium of humorous impersonation. They eat delicious meals (had director Michael Winterbottom‘s camera lingered just a moment longer, the series could have qualified as food-porn), they stay in exquisite hotels and they meet beautiful women. Coogan and Brydon ad-lib-quip their way through first the Lake District and then Italy on a brace of bromantic maxi-breaks filled with innocuous hedonism.
Steve Coogan plays “Steve”, a ludicrously successful comedian, who, freshly unburdened of his Hollywood girlfriend, finds himself with a commission from The Observer to undertake a tour of the Lake District and no one with whom to travel. At a loose end, he recruits “Rob” (Rob Brydon), an almost just as absurdly successful stand-up-man, who by contrast is happily married and a newly-minted father.
Viewed episode by episode, the show is enjoyable. Perhaps even four-star enjoyable. Watched as presented here, however, cut together into feature-length Michael Winterbottom productions, however, they pall, and badly. (Which raises another confusing issue: The Trip to Italy is, according to IMDb, “written and directed by Michael Winterbottom”. If there’s no actual storyline and all the dialogue is ad-libbed, what, pray, did you “write”, Mr Winterbottom?)
First, there’s the character of Steve. Steve Coogan playing Alan Partridge is sublime, one of the greatest comic fools of any medium; chock-full of pathos and empty of self-knowledge, stuck in emotional limbo and eternally entertaining for that fact alone. By contrast, Alan Partridge playing Steve Coogan (which is this feels like), is devoid of pathos… he’s just pathetic.
Steve has everything Alan ever could have wanted: success, money, acclaim that extends beyond the graveyard shift at Radio Norwich – even a family who will speak to him on occasion. But he remains a malcontent manchild, refusing to grow up or to acknowledge his phenomenal fortune (insisting to his American agent that he hold out for a movie role because a TV series is somehow beneath him. Yuh. Because Hugh Laurie’s such a failure.).
His foil is Rob, seemingly satisfied with his (also pretty enviable) lot, just happy to be as lucky as he is – wife, child, DVD sales, gigs at the Apollo. Against Steve’s ever-reaching Midas, Rob presents a contented Everyman, his only barb of competitiveness the apparent need to spar with Steve in the arena of impersonation.
Which is entertaining, in its initial stages. A good Michael Caine impression is great fun to watch. So is a good Sean Connery… but these are the most-impersonated figures in all of British culture. Watching week by week, one has a good few days to engage in other pursuits and forget the more excruciating bits. But when presented with 107 minutes in one go of misanthropy, ingratitude, bickering, oneupmanship and then, to top it all, yet another bloody dose of “now he’s older, his voice goes all down like this… and he’s out of breath… ‘Master Bruce, i won’t bury another Batman…’” It rankles, to say the least.
Massive fans will no doubt enjoy the full-dollop doses of The Trip and The Trip to Italy, but anyone who may find yet another Al Pacino impression a tad wearying, or who just wishes these Peter Pans would dispense with the comic dick-sizing, acknowledge their incredible good fortune and just freaking grow a pair… should probably opt for the episode-by-episode viewing option altogether. Or, even better, dig out the I’m Alan Partridge box-set instead.
- The Trip and The Trip to Italy are available on DVD and Blu-Ray from 12 May.
