Journey through Greece

THE fourth instalment in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s The Trip series is an amusing and pleasurable journey through Greece.

The Trip to Greece, written and directed by long-time collaborator Michael Winterbottom, also marks the 10-year anniversary of when the two first started taking culinary trips, initially around England’s Lake District.

The pair, playing versions of themselves, drive from place to place, dining on fancy meals and riffing about their lives, careers and ageing while trying to one-up each other’s impressions of the likes of Mick Jagger, Marlon Brando, Ray Winstone and, of course, Michael Caine.

A jaunt through Italy followed in 2014, and then one through Spain in 2017, which ended bizarrely with Coogan either being kidnapped by jihadists in Morocco, or having a monster hallucination.

This sequel briefly touches on that controversial ending, but only mentioning that Coogan had “gone missing”.

While Coogan was obsessed with Orwell and Cervantes on the Iberian Peninsula in Spain, further west he wants to recreate, albeit in a much truncated timeline, Odysseus’ journey from Troy to Ithaca.

Coogan’s stickler for the finer points of Ancient Greece (“It’s Heracles, the Romans called him Hercules”) balances well with Brydon’s irreverence of such pomposity (“I only know Hercules from the film”) and it’s that push-and-pull of their banter and their friendship that drives these movies, because there’s never much plot.

Coogan, Brydon and Winterbottom have all said this is the last chapter, so like those delectable dishes and gorgeous vistas that form the backdrop of The Trip to Greece, savour it.

Much like Homer’s epic poem, the ending is ultimately a satisfying one.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Trip to Greece is available on video-on-demand.

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