The Trip

They announced the nominees for the Golden Globes yesterday. I didn't spot a category for Best Tragicomedy of the year but here's my nomination -The Trip.The premise is wafer thin. Steve Coogan has been hired to write a series of restaurant reviews for The Observer. His American girlfriend, having booked the venues, has returned home. He needs someone at his side. He invites Rob Brydon. They talk - a lot, they eat - a lot, they sing songs in the car and they argue. No A, B and C plots, no big twist before the end, no fnar fnar just six joyus half hours.

It  is a continuation of the characters we met in the Coogan/Brydon/Michael Winterbottom production: "Tristram Shandy, A Cock and Bull Story" and follows in the line of 'real' comedies like The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm. It is improvised, it is argumentative and it paints a fictional version of real people's lives.

The version of himself Coogan offers here is a lonely comic actor, desperate for American success but saddled with the albatross of Alan Patridge around his neck. Brydon is the Welsh king of impressions, happily married and more at ease with himself than his traveling companion. That they managed to spin six wonderful episodes from two men swapping angst and impressions over elaborate dinners is a tribute to their creativity and the direction of Michael Winterbottom.

Brydon: "You just need one film and that will propel you"
Coogan: "I've done 10",
Brydon: "You need the right film"

How close to the real people are the characters of Coogan and Brydon that we see here? Here Coogan is a middle aged man who worries about his saggy face, plays the field and is something of a control freak. He is cold, competitive, always wanting to match and better Brydon's impersonations and driven mad that Brydon can do a small 'man in a box' voice that he can't. His own version comes out sounding like Donald Duck.  


And all the time the series drips with sadness. Coogan is remote from his son from his failed marriage. Remote because of the geographical distance between them but also because he can't connect. He wants to be a good father but he also wants to be in his American girlfriend's bed. He can't have both. He knows it. 


The final scenes return the travelers to their respective homes. Brydon to the warm bosom of a loving family, Coogan to a cold glass and steel apartment that looks out over a not particularly inspiring view of the city. Brydon to his loving wife, Coogan to an empty flat with no-one to talk to apart from the ansaphone of his American agent. 


Is there more to come? I sincerely hope so.