I slowly slid into it."Īlready there have been some at least semi-memorable meals: "That pasta, in that bowl," Coogan says enthusiastically. "And then we sat down and started eating, and drinking nice wine, and I thought this is quite nice. "I arrived here just knackered, thinking I don't really want to do this," admits Coogan. Without even the aid of stand-up baths or breakfast cereals, Italy has somehow quickly seduced them. "And Michael said he was going to do it in Italy," he says. "I thought that's it now, there's nothing else we can do.
"Certainly after the first one I didn't want to do another," says Brydon.
#Bryant cook iceberg drive inn series
The decision to return for another series took some deliberation. He has been busy scrolling through his iPhone, hunting for a Rod Stewart song – a rare recording of Hot Legs. And you know the thing is, there's no need for it." Brydon looks up and frowns. Brydon is eating a Lion Bar Coogan is inspecting the interior decor. The cameras are no longer rolling, yet the conversation could easily have been plucked from any episode of The Trip. Some while later, I spot them together in the hotel bar. This time, though, there has been a shift in the pair's relationship: where the first series chose Coogan as its focus, this time it is Brydon who's reviewing the restaurants and finds his life in flux – his career in ascendance, his marriage at sea. Season two, The Trip to Italy, presents a similar, if sunnier, scenario: a food tour from Liguria to Capri, via Rome and Pompeii and Ravello, again on behalf of the Observer.
In among it all were touching ruminations on fame, success, and what it means to be male and in midlife. Brydon and Coogan played fictionalised versions of themselves, and along the way there were hand-dived scallops, one-night stands, sticky toffee puddings, Michael Caine impersonations, much bickering, pork belly and quoting of Romantic poets. But it was also about many other things besides. It was about the food, of course – the preparation and presentation of each dish was lovingly shot. For complicated reasons involving the breakdown of his relationship, he ends up inviting Brydon to join him.
The premise of season one was that Coogan had been commissioned by the Observer to set out on a gastronomic tour of the north of England, from the Inn at Whitewell in the Trough of Bowland to the Yorke Arms in the Yorkshire Dales. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view video
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