With overseas jaunts tipped to remain verboten for some time to come, the fourth and purportedly final instalment of Michael Winterbottom's tragi-comic culinary travelogue series comes with an extra helping of poignance.
In addition to the standard, darkly funny musings on the vicissitudes of middle-age dished out by stars and conversational sparring partners Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, the sight of so many sparkling Mediterranean bays, craggy outcrops dotted with ancient ruins, and highly picturesque patio settings, all of them a-bustle with tourist activity, is bound to stir up some feelings in cabin-feverish viewers.
Having previously wined, dined and bantered their way through the north of England, Italy, and Spain (in 2010, 2014, and 2017, respectively), The Trip to Greece finds Coogan and Brydon, in character as lightly fictionalised versions of themselves, off on another edifying Grand Tour under the guise of writing restaurant reviews for The Observer.
This time their trip is inspired by Homer, and the homewards route taken by Odysseus after the Trojan War.
Equipped with Panama hats, a hybrid Range Rover, and a suite of cultural references that run the gamut from Aristotle to Barry Gibb, the British comedy scene stalwarts are bound for Ithaca, via Lesbos, Pilos, Athens, and Hydra.
They begin their journey in the north-west of Turkey, where Troy once stood, an impressive wooden horse presiding over the entrance to the site since 1975. "Do an 'A-ha!'" Brydon instructs his travelling companion, most often recognised as the ingeniously awful Alan Partridge, as he poses for the obligatory photo inside the hollow structure.
Much as Coogan obligingly quotes his alter ego, The Trip to Greece quotes readily from the Trips that came before: the cuisine and accompanying scenery may be different this time around, but the dynamic between the two men, and the philosophical themes that run through the film, are entirely familiar.
So too are the perfunctory narrative beats: the visit from Steve's assistant Emma (Claire Keelan) and Observer photographer Yolanda (Marta Barrio) once again results in Coogan coupling with the latter while Brydon is left to amuse the former, which he does by parodying her boss's flirtations. (There are a handful of new celebrity impressions thrown into the ever-expanding mix, however.)
"As you get older, it's inevitable that you repeat yourself," Brydon notes during the first meal of the tour, practically adjusting the viewer's expectations to 'low'. "Originality is overrated," counters Coogan. "Everything is derivative of something."
Glib but true — and especially so for a couple of actors, merchants of imitation, whose particular brief is to replicate their own identities within the context of a fictional scenario. A-ha!
'Steve' is still anxious to assert his status as the bigger, brighter, more intellectual star of the two, while 'Rob', a family man mostly content with character-actor levels of fame, still takes clear delight in cutting him down to size — though he also seeks Coogan's approval and, even more elusive, an admission that they're not just colleagues on a work trip, but genuine friends.
And so, over various smoked, powdered, and/or jellied morsels, they take turns launching barbs at one another, each with the precision of Paris at Achilles' heel.
Whether debating which of them could better pull off a t-shirt with a slogan on it, or the relative merits of having children versus having BAFTAs (of which, Coogan would undoubtedly like it to be noted, he has seven — and Brydon none), their deliciously freewheeling conversation is animated by the spirit of one-upmanship that tends to cleave to oversized but fragile male egos.
It's a spectator sport that would be woefully tiresome were it not for the considerable wit, and self-awareness, of these particular players.
And yet this match would seem to lack some of the piquancy of their earlier ones.
Where the boldness with which they parried on their inaugural Trip was exhilarating (and actually felt overplayed on their last outing, to Spain), here Coogan and Brydon appear to have relaxed into their respective roles. Competitive without being combative, they anticipate and take evident pleasure in the skill of the other, and even issue words of encouragement every now and again.
In between courses at "Greece's top seafood restaurant", they riff on the dental torture scene from John Schlesinger's Marathon Man. (I've always enjoyed how, in every establishment they visit, the other patrons seem completely oblivious to their showy antics — hinting at the warped reality in which the series takes place.) "Now try it again Steve, I want you for this part," Brydon counsels as Coogan tests out his sickle-probe-wielding Laurence Olivier — a coach rather than a rival.
That I find myself partial to this gentler mode of play is perhaps a sign that I'm getting overly sentimental. Well, it has been a full 15 years since Coogan and Brydon first played moderately unflattering versions of themselves in Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, precipitating their decade-long fine dining Odyssey in that same vein.
"Do you want to continue?" a young German waitress asks in endearingly idiosyncratic English as she clears the first round of plates from their table on some sunny balcony, somewhere tantalisingly scenic. "She could have been asking us about our lives," quips Coogan, ever conscious of the youthful inclination to associate middle age with irrelevance. She might also have been asking about the series itself.
While I would be quite happy for them to continue, setting out for a new Trip every few years, Seven Up!-style, I wouldn't wish to compel anyone to keep on repeating themselves to the point where they start to lose interest in the statement, letting their eyes wander and their words trail off.
The Trip to Greece is available from May 20.
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2020-05-19 21:16:20Z
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