'You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!' The best moments from The Trip and The Trip to Italy
It's almost seven years since Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, playing fictionalised characters of themselves, drove around England, dining at fine restaurants, bickering, improvising, doing impressions, and generally just buggering about for a programme called The Trip.
That first series was so wonderful, the pair were sent to Italy four years later to do exactly the same thing, only in a slightly warmer climate. The things life gives back if you can just sound like a small man trapped in a box, eh?
A third series, The Trip to Spain, gets underway tonight on Sky Atlantic, which is the perfect excuse to revisit some of the best moments from the first two series.
The Trip: the best restaurants visited by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, in pictures
'That's Michael Caine'
Where else to start, really? This highly quotable scene from the The Trip unfolds as Brydon and Coogan attempt to outdo each other with increasingly extravagant impressions of Michael Caine. You decide who comes out on top (clue: definitely Brydon).
'I am glad you didn't and I admire your restraint'
More than any other, this scene illustrates how cleverly The Trip is filmed to make the conversations appear improvised, when of course much – though not all – of the series is scripted. Oh, and there's a half-decent Anthony Hopkins impression from Brydon as well.
'Like a martini, shaken, not stirred'
The James Bond impressions aren't, to be frank, vintage but this scene stands out for the sharp twists and turns the conversation takes. One moment Bond is ordering a martini; the next he appears to be having a stroke.
'Malcolm. He'd never play a character called Malcolm'
A perfect example, here, of Coogan's understatement complementing Brydon's deliberately OTT impressions.
'We rise at daybreak'
Another classic, readily quotable scene. A long car journey through the north of England has never looked such fun.
'The consistency is a bit like snot. But it tastes great.'
Coogan takes on the role of restaurant critic – and throws in a first-rate Ray Winstone impression for good measure.
'Where do you stand on Michael Bublé?'
So asks Brydon during The Trip to Italy. "His windpipe," comes Coogan's acid response.
'You sound deaf'
More vintage Michael Caine but even those impressions are upstaged by Brydon's Christian Bale, which is (super)heroic.
'You don't have to be in Sicily to do impressions of The Godfather'
And a jolly good thing, too, because these are pretty good.
'So you do like Alanis Morissette?'
A distillation of what the whole series is really about: two blokes having a cracking good time.
The Trip to Spain starts tonight at 10pm on Sky Atlantic
The Trip: the best restaurants visited by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, in pictures
