take a trip

Nothing beats a good comedy to lift your spirits in the dead of winter. A friend recently introduced me to killer BBC miniseries The Trip, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, and I am now totally hooked. 

After a few initial excerpts, I thought it was just an impression pissing-contest between two extremely egotistical (although brilliant) comedians. But when I sat down to watch the whole thing in sequence, I quickly saw there’s much more to it. 

The concept of the show is that Steve Coogan is invited on a restaurant tour of Northern England by The Observer magazine. His marriage on the rocks and his wife out of the country, he asks colleague Rob Brydon along as a last resort. Coogan plays himself as a self-doubting, dissatisfied artist with a bruised ego, married to a woman so out of his league he’s expecting to lose her at any minute. Brydon, on the other hand, is happily married with a baby, completely satisfied with his career and confident in his abilities. This contrast makes for great dramatic tension and hilarious bits as they try to outdo each other with spot-on impressions of Roger Moore, Al Pacino, Steven Hawking and too many others to name. 

Winterbottom has edited the six episodes down into a feature film distributed in the US by IFC. But, if you want to see the series in its uncut perfection, get thee to YouTube, where you’ll find the whole thing online. 

Yet another example of how TV is outdoing the cinema these days. More on that another time....