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The Trip to Greece

Actors Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan travel from Troy to Ithaca following in the footsteps of the Odysseus. Actors Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan travel from Troy to Ithaca following in the footsteps of the Odysseus. Actors Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan travel from Troy to Ithaca following in the footsteps of the Odysseus.

• Michael Winterbottom
• Steve Coogan
• Claire Keelan
• 69 User reviews
• 159 Critic reviews
• 69 Metascore
• 1 nomination

• Steve's Father
• (as Soraya Mahalia Hatner)
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The movie that Steve Coogan worked on with Kareem Alkabbani , which Steve couldn't remember, is Greed (2019) .
• Goofs Brydon talks about Hercules and asks, "Can you imagine Christianity forgiving someone who killed his wife and children?" The first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, killed his wife and eldest son and the Church made him a saint.

Rob Brydon : Legoland costs a fortune, but you get a lot for your money.

• Connections Edited from The Trip (2010)
• Soundtracks Jack Written and performed by Michael Nyman Published by Chester Music Ltd Licensed courtesy of MN Records Ltd

User reviews 69

• Jan 19, 2021
• How long is The Trip to Greece? Powered by Alexa
• May 20, 2020 (Australia)
• United Kingdom
• Viaje a Grecia
• Revolution Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• May 24, 2020

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• Runtime 1 hour 43 minutes

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Is This the Best (or Worst?) Time to Release a Travel and Food Film? Rob Brydon on the End of The Trip

When I saw The Trip 10 years ago, I felt it had been cooked up in a lab just for me. A meandering, melancholic gastro-tour in which two middle-aged Brits play a devastating game of one-upmanship while eating perfectly plated food? Yes, please. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s bits—a comic reimagining of a costume-drama soliloquy , spot-on impressions of Sean Connery and Michael Caine —quickly entered my vernacular and have never quite left me. (To this day, my family and I still occasionally declare: “Gentlemen to bed!”)

I was hardly alone in my affection for The Trip. The Michael Caine impression went viral, and the decade that followed brought our English odd couple on three additional Michael Winterbottom–directed holidays: Italy, Spain, and now, in its final act, Greece.

Like the three iterations that came before it, The Trip to Greece is chock-full of literary allusions. In this installment, our heroes (sweetened by age but saltier in appearance) are following the rather-on-the-nose path of Odysseus, beginning in Tevfikiye, Turkey (once Troy) and ending in Ithaca. The opening scene is a familiar one: Rob and Steve in a dreamy garden, trading barbs, eating a meal.

Watching this play out—nearly three months into quarantine—stirred up a foreign, almost painful feeling in me. What I wouldn’t give to be able to travel, to go to a restaurant, to joke face-to-face with a friend . “It’s given it almost like a science-fiction feel when we look at it now,” Brydon says to me via phone from his home in Twickenham, a town about 10 miles west of London, “these people who are allowed to travel freely.”

I ask Brydon, who has been gardening and self-isolating along with the rest of us, how it feels to promote a far-flung gourmand film while in lockdown. True to his character, he has a sunny outlook on the whole thing: “I hope it makes it more appealing,” he said. “It really is a chance to travel from your armchair.” Below, Brydon talks about a decade-worth of eating, traveling, and how it feels to say goodbye to The Trip .

How much of the food are you actually eating when filming?

We eat a fair bit. We eat a course three times. So we get served three starters, and each time Michael [Winterbottom] will reset the camera. And then we’ll get three mains and then three puddings. Now, on the first Trip , I put on eight pounds because I was just wolfing it down. I cut back on the future Trips , although, I still think I eat more than Steve [Coogan]. He pushes his food around his plate a bit more. And I have been accused of speaking with my mouth full because I can’t get a word in edgewise. But also, there’s a great realism that actually comes with eating the food.

Eating each course three times must make the meals more memorable.

Actually, I don’t remember the meals as well as you might think. I’m always thinking, Well, what am I going to say next? It’s during the meals that we often do a lot of the improvised stuff and try to be funny. So if you held a gun to my head, I could remember them, I’m sure. But people are often surprised that they don’t loom as large in my memory as they do to the viewer.

How much of your banter is actually improvised?

Michael is the author of the films. He comes to us with the country, the route, the restaurants, the literary allusions we’re making, the plot, what’s going to happen in our families—that’s all him. So I always say, he draws it and we color it in. So all the riffs, all the funny bits (dare I say) are Steve and myself making those up.

I read that Michael edited out a fair bit of Steve’s laughter in the previous films. With this one, he was more generous, which felt like a nice win for fictional Rob.

I think that we both personally—in reality, and in the film versions of ourselves—have relaxed over the years. Certainly, he and I get on better now. There’s more warmth between us now, more than there was before; we know each other a little more. And the fictional us know each other better as well. I think it’s also a combination of age—just getting older, enjoying being alive, wondering how much longer you have left. I mean, I’m in my mid-50s, so hopefully a lot of time, but you don’t know. I think you get to this age and you start to smell the roses a bit more.

Fictional Rob always seems to have a happy ending—certainly happier than Steve’s endings, at least.

It’s always been the thing that he’s more troubled, deep, grappling-with-things character. And that builds into the comedy where he becomes pompous and full of himself. The joke is that I live much more lightly. And there’s a kernel of truth in that, but it’s exaggerated for comic effect.

What was your favorite memory of this Trip ?

I tried to turn Steve into a Bruce Springsteen fan. So now whenever I hear “Western Stars,” it reminds me of being in this Range Rover covering hundreds of miles and me choosing the tracks for him.

Bruce didn’t make it into the film cut, though. You were mostly riffing on the title song from the musical Grease .

Right, because that was in reality . See, that’s a very interesting observation. To me, there’s obviously a clear divide. We wouldn’t be singing [the Grease theme] in reality.

Do you ever revisit the older installments?

No. If someone puts up a clip on Twitter or social media, I would maybe watch it, but I wouldn’t seek it out … I’ve had enough of me. I’m over me. I’m happy to watch, but there are other things I’d rather spend my time doing.

Has the decade-long experience of filming this series informed your sense of travel or dining out?

It’s made me a bit more adventurous, I suppose. It’s made me realize that there are lots of places I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of. I mean, it’s been a privilege to have beautifully curated holidays in these incredible countries. It really has.

How does it feel to say goodbye to The Trip ?

When I stop and think about it, it’s a bit sad. But my primary feeling is wanting to go out on a high. That will always be more important than any sentimental thing. I’m in touch with Michael a little bit, and with Steve, so we’ll keep that contact going.

Are you talking to Steve more or less now that we’re all self-isolating?

We’ve been in contact recently because of the film—I’ve shared quite a few Zooms with him. Our friendship is a bit more fraternal. I feel tremendously close to him; I have huge affection for him, but I don’t see him as much as I see a lot of other friends. He travels a lot; he doesn’t live near me. It tends to be more of a text-and-email kind of relationship. And then if we’re in the same place, we may meet up and have a meal.

The Trip to Greece is available to stream on demand now. This interview has been edited and condensed.

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You’ve already figured out whether or not you enjoy spending time with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon , I presume. The real-life friends, British comic actors (multi-hyphenates even, what with Coogan’s screenwriting credits at least) of long standing and considerable achievement, are now on their fourth “Trip” film and, sure, it is a gift for any fan of the prior three.

For those not in the know about the series, “Trip” doesn’t refer to psychedelics, although the notion of two British comedians making four films on chemical consciousness alteration sounds pretty ... well, dangerous frankly. So good thing it’s not. 2010’s “ The Trip ” was a deliberately modestly titled picture (cut down from a TV miniseries) in which Brydon and Coogan, on the pretext of having gotten a newspaper assignment (remember those?), did a tour of certain restaurants in the British countryside. As they sampled the best of a cuisine that’s often made sport of, the two blokes made sport of each other, trading acerbic barbs about their careers. But what made the movie viral were the impressions they traded. In particular a multi-valent competition involving Michael Caine as he sounds at various ages.

This was laugh-out-loud, endlessly re-playable stuff that overshadowed the meta aspects of the undertaking—that is, that Coogan and Brydon were fictionalizing themselves, exaggerating certain features of their personalities to make them more bristly for the sake of comedic/dramatic tension.

The success of the first outing led of course to “The Trip To Italy” in 2014 and “The Trip To Spain” in 2017. The impressions continued as the fictionalized back stories grew. Director Michael Winterbottom , as he demonstrated with Coogan in films like “ 24 Hour Party People ” and “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,” is a past master at such maneuvers, and of late, impelled to steer his comedies into more serious territory. So “The Trip To Greece,” while mostly very laugh out loud funny, is also more somber than the prior installments and also has, in Julian Barnes ’ phrase, the sense of an ending.

And for an ending why not go back to the beginning. Greece is, to Western culture, the birthplace of poetry, of storytelling, of philosophy, of comedy and drama. The movie opens with Brydon reciting some verse, and recollecting how Lord Byron’s proudest achievement was swimming the Hellespont strait, near where Ancient Troy was. This is a country for old, or at least aging men, and the setting puts the characters in a contemplative mood.

Steve more so than Rob. Back home in England, Steve’s father is gravely ill, which he doesn’t share with Brydon. So Brydon blithely regales his buddy with awful song-puns (“Greece is the word”) and good-naturedly needles him about the Laurel and Hardy biopic (" Stan & Ollie ") for which his performance garnered a BAFTA nomination.

But even Brydon succumbs to a stop-and-really-smell-the-roses feeling, impulsively asking his wife to join him on the last leg of the journey. The self-reflexive show business stuff has a different resonance here than in the prior pictures. When Coogan speaks with an agent and gets the bad news that he’s been turned down for a role in a Damien Chazelle project, the feeling isn’t “well that’s the way the cookie crumbles” so much as a nagging sadness concerning the character’s inability, or disinclination to, really live in the present moment. And while prior pictures have allowed the character to indulge in expensive fine dining without much thought to whatever’s happening outside their picturesque world, here there’s discussion of refugee camps and such.

None of this casts a pall over the proceedings, because the melancholy isn’t forced. When you reach a certain age you make a kind of deal with melancholy as a feature rather than a bug of everyday life. It would be foolhardy for the movie to pretend otherwise, as far as these fellows are concerned. But the fellows manage to seize the days anyway, and the food they eat—largely the riches of the sea—and the banter they exchange are rich and fulfilling. And the duo remains great company.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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The Trip to Greece (2020)

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“ The Trip to Greece ” marks the last stop on one of cinema’s most unlikely franchise journeys.

The film, which once again finds comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing exaggerated versions of themselves, has all the familiar elements that gave the series its cult status in the U.S. There are long, luxurious meals consumed in beautiful locations, interspersed with dueling impressions from two talented mimics channeling everyone from Mick Jagger to Michael Caine.

Beginning with 2010’s “The Trip,” which found the men on a foodie tour of the North of England, the pair have also added Spain and Italy to their itineraries. But the movies are more than just travelogues. What gives “The Trip” its potency is that intermixed with five-star meals and stunning vistas is a meditation on mortality and celebrity. In advance of the U.S. debut of “The Trip to Greece” on May 22, Coogan and Brydon spoke with Variety about why they’ve decided to give their passports a break and end the series, and how they’re weathering the coronavirus shutdown.

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Director Michael Winterbottom says this is the final film. Why are you wrapping up after four movies?

Popular on Variety

Steve Coogan: To avoid jumping the shark. We eked it out by making jokes about it becoming tired and repetitive, but even that joke can become tired and repetitive. It’s the old showbiz adage of leave them wanting more, not leave them wanting less.

Rob Brydon: I was ready to finish it. That’s not to say that years down the road it won’t be interesting to revisit it. But right now I think we should just quit while we’re ahead.

It sounds like you’re leaving the door open to someday returning?

Brydon: One day, when time has passed and the years have been as kind or cruel as they will be, it might be nice to come back and see us again further down the road.

Coogan: It feels like the next one would have to be almost sort of a retrospective or a reckoning on age. I’m sure we’ll have some observations on the autumn of life. Bloody hell, did I just say that?  

Are there any locations you’d still like to visit?

Coogan: If we did something in the future, I’d like to return to England. It’s kind of that old T.S. Eliot thing about coming back to where you’ve started, so you can know the place for the first time. That feels poetically correct. We talked about going to America at one point. The thing about Europe is you get a lot of bang for your buck. There’s a lot to see in such a limited space. In America everything is so spread out. We didn’t want to shoot ourselves getting on and off airplanes.

Have you been surprised that “The Trip” became a franchise?

Brydon: So much of it is Steve and myself improvising, and I always worried that we weren’t going to improvise enough good stuff. The fact that we’ve sustained it over four installments amazes me.

Coogan: The contemplative quality, that was a shock.

Brydon: Yes, I was unaware there’d be the melancholic music and the long slow shots of the landscape. When I saw the first episode I was so surprised by how slow it was, but that became its strength.

Why do you think the slow pace is its strength?

Coogan: We live in a time where movie studios and broadcasters assume that the entire world has attention deficit disorder. The YouTube generation’s mind is constantly shifting. I assume these movies are like an oasis in a desert of busyness, but I have no idea how they are received. I don’t engage with social media. I get emails from the odd friend about them.

Why don’t you use social media?

Coogan: I see so many people get sucked into a vortex of pointlessness. I feel intellectual discourse is stimulating, but rarely achieves anything other than people expressing their points of view. No one gets their opinions changed by information, by showing them statistics. But people do get persuaded by story, by emotion. Sometimes that can be nefarious like Donald Trump, who rarely deals in facts. He just deals in dog whistles that elicit Pavlovian responses.

Brydon: I’ve got to come in here — will you give the guy a break, please?

Rob, you are active on Twitter. What do you like about it?

Brydon: I used to say it’s like a very nice country pub that you can go into and exchange views, but then somebody would come over and knock you and hit your pint and a fight would start. There’s so much darkness and negativity in it, but it can also be a good way to communicate.

Coogan: Sometimes I think, “Oh God, I don’t have any social media presence. I wonder if Rob will do something for me.” I might do a tour in a couple of years. Rob, will you tweet about my tour?

Brydon: I would do it gladly.

Coogan: For free tickets?

Brydon: I wouldn’t need that Steve, because I wouldn’t want to see the show.  I would want nothing more than to make you happy.

You’ve been doing these films for a decade. How have you changed?

Coogan: Now that I’m getting older, I rail against acerbic cynicism and people who are self-consciously edgy. I don’t   care about style over substance. Whatever you do, try to offer some hope and say something inclusive without being naive or overly sentimental.

Do people think that "The Trip" is a documentary and this is how you are in real life?

Brydon: You’re playing a fairground-mirror version of yourself in which some parts of you are expanded and some are contracted.

Coogan: It gets confusing because sometimes I’ll say something in “The Trip'” which is a statement of fact and sometimes I’ll say something which is a bona fide lie. Michael will say, “talk about chasing a Spanish assistant across Europe.” Well, I’ve never done that, but it’s conceivable that I would. It doesn’t bother me if people think it’s me. The people who know me know it’s not me. Rob doesn’t go around doing stupid voices all the time. I’m not as precious as I appear to be in “The Trip.” We’re doing a yin yang, because it makes for better comedy. The Venn diagram of us has a lot of overlapping. If you saw Rob and I having dinner, it would be less cantankerous.

Brydon: All you’d see would be two hot guys, just shooting the breeze really.

Are there impressions that Steve does that you can’t do Rob and vice versa?

Brydon: There’s one that he does better than me, without a doubt. He does Martin Sheen, which I simply cannot do.

Coogan: I hadn’t done any impersonations for about 20 years. Wasn’t particularly interested in them. Had spent a lot of my career trying to get away from them. Michael said, “can you do some impersonations?” I thought Christ. And I honestly believe that any entertainer over 40, who makes his living doing impressions needs to take a long, hard look at himself in the mirror.

Brydon: I agree with Steve. Any person over the age of 60, who does impressions for a living needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. I mean that’s not true. Martin Short or Dana Carvey are amazing at what they do. I find the term “impressionist” to be somewhat reductive. I kind of bristle when I’m introduced as an impressionist.

Is it weird to be opening a film about traveling at a time when everyone is stuck at home?

Brydon: You hope that it provides some escapism. We did this last year, but it seems like a lifetime ago, and just very different circumstances.

Coogan: Maybe the human race can clean its act up. Hopefully the thing that we learn from this won’t just be to bump elbows.

Brydon: It would be so dispiriting if, after all of this, nothing changed in terms of climate awareness and the environment and that whole thing.

Coogan: They said the free market would answer all our problems, except when there’s an emergency and then suddenly it can’t help us anymore. However they dress it up, we realize we need some emergency socialism right now. But I do think that we all now realize globally that government has a role, except maybe for the f–king rednecks with their semiautomatics. Even some moderate conservatives will start to think that you need big government.

Are you sad that because of the coronavirus most people won’t see the film in theaters?

Coogan: It was never going to be a superhero franchise thing.

Brydon: I think what you mean is that even fewer people will see it in theaters. It doesn’t bother me. You must interview a lot of people who absolutely live for film! But if people see it and enjoy it, that’s all I care about.

Coogan: It’s something we make on our own terms. It’s more art than business. Someone once said to me the secret to a long career is never to peak.

Brydon: That was like something James Corden told me that Bob Balaban said to him: Never be hot. Always be warm.

Coogan: Well, that’s true. “The Trip” has never been hot in America. It’s always been simmering away in a pot in the corner like some soup. It’s a very nice broth.  

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Michael Winterbottom's journey through various idyllic European cuisines becomes a literal odyssey in the fourth and final film,  The Trip To Greece . The series, which started as a British television sitcom in 2010, follows comedic actors Steve Coogan ( This Time With Alan Partridge ) and Rob Brydon ( Holmes & Watson ) as fictionalized versions of themselves who have been commissioned to do a restaurant tour of different European countries.

Every season has been edited into a film for overseas consumption, and the latest film will be available on digital and video on demand starting May 22. Not only does  The Trip To Greece feel like a true closing of a chapter, it also heightens its literary allusions more than every by paying strong homage to the ancient Greek tale of Odysseus.

Related:  10 British Comedy Shows That Need Worldwide Recognition

Rob Brydon, who plays the fun-loving and impersonation-obsessed version of himself onscreen, spoke with Screen Rant about the experience of the crew's final trip. He shared how much homework he  didn't do for the role, which parts felt closest to and furthest from his real self, and where he'd like to visit next on a trip of his own.

You, Steve and Michael have created a whole universe of the fictionalized Steve and Rob which dates back to A Cock and Bull Story in 2005. How have these caricatures of yourselves developed, and how different from you would you say they are?  

Rob Brydon: Well, I think they're essentially us, but they're just exaggerated to serve the comedy and to serve the drama. It's just taking it and stretching it here and there. So, it's essentially who we are. You know, Steve is more driven and ambitious, while I'm more easygoing. But then we just exaggerate it for comic effect.

The Trip feels like it could go on forever, with both of you visiting different locations. Why was this the right time to make the fourth installment its final one?

Rob Brydon: I think that, for me, it's always been a concern going back to it. I have a comedian's instinct for getting off the stage while they're still laughing. This was the fourth one, so it was slightly born out of fear about overstaying our welcome. You know, leave them wanting more.   And then with this one, because it's Odysseus - we're following Odysseus' journey, and it's about homecoming. It seemed right, and it was a sort of consensus between the three of us that it would be a good time to end it. I can't overstate the importance of leaving people wanting more.

I thought it was fascinating how Trip To Greece broke up the story of Odysseus. Steve's story is that of a son searching for his father and vice, and then Rob is returning to his wife after a voyage. What kind of conversations led to that being the overarching element of the film?

Rob Brydon: Well, no conversations at all. Just Michael Winterbottom saying to us, "This is what we're going to do." Michael is the one who writes the story; Michael decides where we're going. We really do, without being glib, just turn up. Michael has drawn the pictures and we color them in is how I would put it. All the plot decisions and things that happen are entirely Michael, and the literary allusions are his. But then all the riffs and all the funny bits are ours.

In order to keep up with all the literary allusions that like Steve is throwing at Rob, were you assigned any research by Michael that you needed to do? Or did you fly by the seat of your pants since Rob isn't supposed to know as much anyway?

Rob Brydon: He does send the stuff, and Steve read up a little bit. I didn't at all. And generally over the four films, I haven't done the homework that I should have done. This time I said to myself, "I've got time." Let's say it was about four months before we were going to be shooting. I said, "I've got time now. I'll read the Odyssey. I'll really start to know, and then it'll be interesting. It'll be different, because when Steve says things, I'll be able to dazzle him with facts."   But, true to form, I just never got around to it. And I think it's probably best, because comedically it just works better if he's trying to impress you with all this knowledge, and he's wearing it so heavily. And I'm just breezing through it, and I know more about Grease the movies than Greece the country.

How would you characterize your working relationship with Steve and Michael? What draws you to making films together?

Rob Brydon: It's probably the most creative that I feel in everything I do, because it's a very small crew. And because we shoot chronologically, that adds another dimension to it. You feel like a wandering minstrel or a troubadour or a player in Shakespearean times, roaming the country. Because wherever we go, we perform. It's a very small crew and because we improvise so much of it, that gives you this huge feeling of creativity which is very, very enjoyable.   There's pressure, obviously, in as much as you've got to come up with stuff. You've got to improvise it. It's not all there on the on the page, and sometimes, that's easier than other times. But you do learn with experience that if nothing's coming, then you really just wait. You don't panic; you just relax. That's really important. And eventually something will come.

Is there any improvised banter for this trip or any meal in particular that stands out most in your memory?

Rob Brydon: That interesting; let me think. From this one, I enjoyed the bit right at the beginning. And I think it's in the film cut, because of course, it's a series over here. Sometimes I mention something and it's not in the movie cut, but there's a bit where Steve talks about going out with a blanket into his garden to read a book, and there were flies and he has to go back indoors. I did enjoy that.   That was very much my kind of humor. That's right up my street, that sort of thing. I'm impersonating a very famous British talk show host called Michael Parkinson, which I think I did in The Trip To Italy as well, and I like that very much. It's quite a nice device for us, that Steve talks and talks and talks and then I try and pull the rug out from under him. So, I do remember that one being very enjoyable.

I know that Steve's father being ill in the film was probably a sensitive topic in real life as well, and Michael said that he was also inspired by the death of his own father. How was that process for you, both as an actor on the outside of that and the character who support his friend silently through it?

Rob Brydon: Well, that's interesting, because to a degree I've done a lot more comedy than I have tragedy and I feel a lot more sure-footed around the comedy. And then you come into these scenes. So  really, for that sequence in which we're driving to get back to the port together and then we're on the boat together, I'm just trying to feel it. I'm just trying to be instinctive; trying not to do too much; trying just to be. Because, of course, it's very much Steve's story then and we're focusing on him. And I really did just try to think, "What would I do in that situation?"   So, there's an example where it's very much just been ourselves. There's no, there's no edge to that; there's no angle to that. That is, pretty much, how I imagine I would be.

Meanwhile, Rob's scenes with his wife paint a very loving picture of his home life. How would you describe their dynamic?

Rob Brydon: Unrealistic. I'm always saying to Michael - when Rebecca talks to me on the phone and when we have scenes together, it's as if I'm the loveliest person in the world. Which of course what Michael wants to contrast [Steve], but that that is not my situation.   Rebecca's delight with my impersonations couldn't be further from the truth. I mean, I don't do them - in The Trip, I even do them in bed. I mean, good Lord, I certainly wouldn't do that in real life. And if I did, it certainly wouldn't be indulged; it wouldn't be met with laughter and delight. So, I always find those scenes quite difficult to play, because they bear no relation to my reality whatsoever.

I know this is the final series and film, but if you were to work on something else with Steve or Michael, where would you want to go? Once were allowed to go places again, that is.

Rob Brydon: Just before we shot this last year, I had been touring with my stand up show in Australia and New Zealand. So, either of those. I've been to Australia before; I've never been to New Zealand, and I fell in love with New Zealand. I would love to find a reason to go back there at someone else's expense.

More:  15 Best Movies For Greek Mythology Fans

The Trip To Greece   is available on digital and through VOD starting May 22.

In The Trip to Greece, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon eat, drink, and follow in Odysseus’s footsteps

The four-journey series comes to a poignant end.

by Alissa Wilkinson

If you buy something from a Vox link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Every week, new original films debut on Netflix, Hulu, and other digital services, often films with modest budgets and limited fanfare. Cinemastream is Vox’s series highlighting the most notable of these premieres, in an ongoing effort to keep interesting and easily accessible new films on your radar.

The Trip to Greece

The premise: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon travel to Greece for a week of sunshine, good food, trying to make each other laugh, and driving one another mad. But as with the three previous Trip films, something more serious lurks beneath the surface.

What it’s about: The Trip to Greece is the fourth (and maybe final) in a series of films in which Coogan and Brydon choose a destination and set out for a week of eating extravagantly, touring the countryside, and having some fun. (The films are actually edited-down, feature film-length versions of a BBC TV series .) In the 2010 film, simply titled The Trip , they went to northern England. In 2014, they went to Italy; in 2017, they went to Spain.

Ostensibly the pair is on a mission to “review” the restaurants, but that conceit is less pronounced in the films than it is on the show, especially as the series has continued. Instead, the food and wine and comedy bits are part of a tale of discovery and, at times, disquieting reflections on life, love, and regrets.

Coogan and Brydon both play exaggerated versions of themselves, men who’ve lived roughly the same lives as the real Coogan and Brydon but who are leaning into caricatures. Coogan — a comedian who, in the decade since the first movie came out, has seen his international profile rise as both a comic and dramatic actor — plays a conceited and self-centered straight man to the antics of cut-up Brydon. Coogan is much more internationally successful than Brydon (Brydon is a familiar face on British TV; in The Trip to Greece , Coogan keeps calling him a “light entertainer”). The “Steve Coogan” of the Trip series is haunted by regrets in his personal life, while Brydon enjoys his happy marriage and two children.

While comparing their pasts and possible futures has always been part of the Trip series, The Trip to Greece is more interested in mortality than its predecessors have been. Brydon and Coogan follow in the steps of Odysseus, from Troy to Ithaca, spouting Greek myth trivia alongside jokes about “The Poetics, by Ari Stottle” and dueling impressions of everyone from Marlon Brando to Dustin Hoffman to Werner Herzog. Brydon gently ribs Coogan’s self-serious demeanor about his role in the 2018 film Stan & Ollie . They eat beautiful meals near beautiful shores. At night, they retire to their individual rooms, where Brydon calls his wife and Coogan calls his son, who is monitoring Coogan’s father’s deteriorating health.

Of all four Trip films, The Trip to Greece — while certainly snort-through-your-nose funny at times — plays most like a drama. Apt, perhaps; the pair frequently talks about Greece as the birthplace of theater, and Coogan is desperate to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor. And this more serious turn is not unwelcome. It’s where the series has been driving for the past 10 years.

It’s also a good reason to not watch The Trip to Greece if you haven’t seen the other three in the series; it feels more like a series finale than a standalone film. (They’re all delightful, so if you haven’t seen them, start at the beginning — you’re in for a treat!) Taken together, the movies are a meditation on middle age and mortality, on how our irrevocable life choices, even when they’re the right ones, will haunt us for the rest of our lives. When Coogan talks of the Greek gods, he notes that they’re all fallible and imperfect — just, it’s implied, like us. But sometimes it takes a trip away from home for us to realize who we really are.

Critical consensus: The Trip to Greece has garnered praise from critics . At the Washington Post, Ann Hornaday writes that “they’ve constructed a world between them, an airy, reality-adjacent universe conjured in billowing clouds of witticisms, idle observations, passive-aggressive feints and silent, solitary reflections.”

How to watch it: The Trip to Greece is available on a variety of digital platforms, including Apple TV and Amazon Prime . You can find the full listing here .

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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in ‘The Trip to Greece’: Film Review

Click here to read the full article.

In the opening scene of “ The Trip to Greece ,” Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon , seated (of course!) at an idyllic outdoor table at a to-die-for Mediterranean restaurant, take note of the fact that they’ve been going on their culinary road trips together for close to 10 years. Even for those who have followed them through “The Trip,” “The Trip to Italy,” “The Trip to Spain,” and now “The Trip to Greece,” that news may come as a slightly sobering surprise — a sign of how quickly time passes, and of how a delicate and hilarious series of small-scale semi-improvised British comedies, if they stick around long enough, can become…what? An institution? A franchise?

Maybe something better. The “Trip” films, to those of us who wouldn’t dream of missing one (though we know they’re not so much finely cut gems as casual sketches tricked up into movies — that’s part of their frowsy charm), have become old friends, kind of like Richard Linklater’s “Before” films. Each one is a pared-down version of a six-episode BBC television series, and when you settle in to watch a new one, it’s to see which famous-actor impersonations Coogan and Brydon are going to try to top each other with this time (and also to take a vicarious foodie gawk at the succulent three-course lunches they’re eating). But it’s also to check up on the state of these two: to see how their mutual midlife crisis is going, and to see the latest chapter of their quibbling high-flown showbiz buddy romance, in which taking the piss out of each other, and doing it with the witty precision of verbal gladiators, is the only way they let themselves show what they feel.

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I felt, for the first time, that the series was running a bit low on gas in “The Trip to Spain.” It was still a droll 90 minutes, but the impersonations were starting to seem like golden oldies (they didn’t have that comic shock), and the whole Coogan-and-Brydon-as-Don-Quixote-and-Sancho-Panza routine promised more than it gave. In that light, (Both men are on their voyage through life, yada yada….)

The two are now in their mid-fifties, and at one point they discuss how Coogan, with his silver-flecked hair, is aging marvelously (Brydon, after playing on Coogan’s conceitedness by comparing him to Richard Gere, declares, “I’m saying it: You look better older. You were unpalatable as a young man”). They then launch into a consideration of Coogan’s performance as Stan Laurel in “Stan & Ollie,” the 2018 Laurel and Hardy biopic, which Brydon manages to compliment and insult at the same time. This leads (of course!) to their impression of Stan Laurel and Tom Hardy, which is more chuckly than uproarious, since they already gave Hardy a full workout in “The Trip to Italy.”

A few scenes later, though, they settle into a dueling impersonation — no, a study — of Dustin Hoffman, mostly in “Marathon Man” and “Tootsie,” and what they do with his voice amounts to such a rip-roaringly funny deconstruction of the actor that it ranks right up there with the duo’s great riffs on Pacino. Coogan, especially, nails the petulant music of Hoffman’s so-nervous-it’s-stroboscopic whine. A sublime impersonation is a comic gift — it needs no justification. Yet the attitude, the drilling-down obsession , that Coogan and Brydon bring to their competitive voice mimicry places it somewhere between poetry and Freud. They’re actor-comedians who can hardly express a personal thought without irony, and who are never more themselves than when they’re channeling somebody else.

They’re also dueling egomaniacs: Coogan, with his rakish grin of self-absorption, a star who is never as revered as he wants to be, and Brydon, who tweaks Coogan’s vanity, and knows it, in a way that only someone who secretly identified with it could do. The fact that Coogan and Brydon are playing heightened versions of themselves is part of the ticklish joy of these films, which capture the playacting inherent in life. (Their personalities are quite literally a performance, and part of the joke is: Whose isn’t?) In “The Trip to Greece,” even as primal anxieties creep in (Brydon, calling home to London, wonders who his wife went to the theater with; Coogan learns that his father has fallen ill), these two never let their theatrical guard down.

The movie keeps serving up treats, and I don’t just mean the food (lamb chops in mint sauce! mussels smothered in pine needles!), as when the two have a go at doing Ray Winstone, in full-on cockney gangster mode, as Henry VIII. Coogan offers an impersonation of Mick Jagger in the hospital after his heart surgery (he’s done Mick before, but it remains a luscious sendup — winsome, pouty, putting on airs about not putting on airs), and this time Brydon accompanies him with a Keith Richards whose speech is gibberish and whose laugh is a death-rattle wheeze. They also, once again, sing pop songs in the car: Brydon does “Grease” (because they’re in Greece) and the Bee Gees’ “Tragedy” (because they’re in Greece — and because he seems fixated on Barry Gibb). And when the two compete to see who can do a better job of imitating Demis Roussos’ falsetto on “Forever and Ever” (“It’s not castrata ,” says Steve), you may bust a gut.

At the heart of each of their impersonations is the film’s real subject: their desire to entertain each other by topping each other — that is, the ping-pong of ego between two frenemies who have chosen different paths, but have more in common than they would ever dare to admit. “What would you say is the thing you’re the most proud of?” asks Brydon. Without missing a beat, Coogan says, “My seven BAFTAs.” Brydon: “For me, it would be my children.” Coogan: “Yeah, well, ’cause you haven’t got any BAFTAs.” Brydon: “Though you have got children, which is interesting.” There’s no winner in this duel, just different forms of the impossibility of having it all.

Coogan and Brydon, along with the series’ director, Michael Winterbottom, have suggested that “The Trip to Greece” may be the last outing for these two. But as much as I don’t think we need to see them pursue the same funny-wistful paces through one more cozy corner of Europe, I still think it’s too early for the series to end. How about “The Trip to Japan”? Or, as a grand finale, “The Trip to Hollywood”? It’s time to shake the “Trip” films out of their comfort zone and give these two a brave new world to imitate.

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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon Say Good-bye (for Now) to The Trip

It feels like several lifetimes ago that I talked to Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon over Zoom about their upcoming film The Trip to Greece . It was late March, and the quarantine was new then (in both the U.S. and the U.K.), and we were all trying to figure what the next few weeks and months would be like. The first half of our conversation, which ran last month , focused partly on their feelings about this strange new time and the peculiar reality-fiction hybrid of the four-part film series (each installment of which premieres as a TV series in the U.K., and is then cut down to feature length). In the second half of our conversation, we get into more specific thoughts around The Trip to Greece , the differences between their fictional and real-life attitudes toward each other, some of their favorite bits that were cut, and why this seemed like the right time to end the whole thing.

I think part of the appeal of The Trip series is that even though you’re both fairly established in your fields, the idea that you still have anxiety and professional jealousies and things like that is charming and relatable. Even though you’ve clearly exaggerated and fictionalized it for the films.  Rob Brydon: I could be deluded here, but I do think one of the differences between how I am on The Trip and how I am in real life is that I don’t niggle away at Steve. I don’t belittle him. I’m quite the opposite. I say, “Tell me about this. I thought it was terrific. I thought it was wonderful.” So, that’s totally the opposite of reality. Also, I’m not that bothered about not getting things. My career is fine, you know, it’s good. I’m not ambitious. I don’t want to be further up. I want to stay where I am.

Steve Coogan: Yeah, I would say that what Rob and I have done over the four series is taken a kernel of truth and grown it into an oak tree of fiction, if you like. Do you like that? Kernel. Acorn.

RB: Lovely. Lovely.

SC: So, there is the acorn of truth, and of course the real oak tree is far more nuanced. It manifests itself because we do have dinner with each other, when filming stops. And if you were to film the real dinners we have, they’re probably less interesting, more boring, more cordial, and just less cantankerous. But no one wants to watch that, so we pick at each other’s peccadilloes. We mine the discomfort. So, by this fourth outing, we sort of knew how to do it. It was like putting on an old jacket.

RB: I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. I came back from [ The Trip to Greece ] thinking, Oh boy, that was more of the same . But you never see it the way other people see it. Especially when it’s something where we are in essence playing a version of ourselves. So, it’s quite hard to watch because there’s so much of us. We’re in every bloody shot, you know.

Was there anything from this show, or any of the shows, that didn’t make it into the final version that you really wish had been kept in? RB: Yeah, there’s always bits. The Gemma Arterton stuff. Is it in The Trip to Spain? I remember thinking that was hilarious. We’re in the car and we’re driving along and I say to Steve, “This is lovely, isn’t it? Isn’t this perfect?” And he says, “Well, it’d be perfect if you weren’t here.” And I say, “Well, who would you rather be there?” And he said, “I don’t know, Gemma Arterton?” So, I start pretending to be Gemma Arterton, and he starts trying to chat me up. And then I would take offense at something very innocuous and slap his face. And I remember us thinking this was just hilarious.

SC: It sort of preempted Me Too. Insofar as we couldn’t do it anymore. [ Laughs. ]

RB: We’d be having a lovely, nice conversation and then Steve would say something perfectly normal like, “Look at that. That’s a lovely sunset over there.” And I go, “[ Gasp. ] Oh, Steve.” And slap him. So, there was that.

SC: And also, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” We sang a very rude version of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” which I always loved. Which is basically the words “bugger bugger bastard, bugger bugger bastard, fuck, cunt, bugger bugger bastard, bugger bugger bastard, fuck, cunt, tits.” We sang all those swear words to “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” and I still remember that with great affection, but no one else saw it.

RB: There was something in this new one, as well, and I remembered it just the other day. We did, in the bit where we’re in the caves and we do the Gregorian chant, we do a thing where Steve is Scaramanga [from The Man With the Golden Gun ] and he’s saying, “Look, Mr. Bond, imagine when this whole underground complex of caves is turned into one giant discotheque.” And then I say, as Bond, [ does a Roger Moore voice ] “But you’ll never get it past the town planners.” And he says, “You forget, Mr. Bond, my brother is the town planner.” And I say, “ Barry Manga?” And he says, “No, Larry.” That was rather funny.

SC: You know, there’s nuanced comedy and then there’s the comedy that’s just stupid and silly and forgettable. And somehow the stupid, forgettable, silly comedy seems to last longer in the imagination than the stuff that had depth, because it’s timelessly funny. It never grows old. That’s what I’m the most nostalgic about. The daftest stuff.

RB: We also did in that section, we did bits of Lennon and McCartney talking to each other. But then I realized Dana Carvey does this fantastic stuff as Lennon and McCartney where McCartney’s telling Lennon about modern stuff. And I’m very glad that our bit didn’t end up because it would have been very similar. But it was very funny. Do you remember that?

SC: Yeah, I remember you talking about that. I didn’t know about that. Remember in the first series I sang that song, “Everyone’s a Bit of a Cunt Sometimes,” and they put that out on YouTube as a sort of rogue bit? So maybe they’ll sort of drip feed these weird off-cuts as it were, as well.

There is generally more singing in The Trip to Greece , it seems. SC: Oh yes, now you’ll love this, Rob. Guy Garvey sent me a message saying he absolutely loved our Swingle Singers. So that’s quite good, isn’t it? He really loved it.

RB: That’s great. There is more singing, but there’s singing that was left out.

SC: Is the Barry Gibb stuff in? I can’t remember what’s in the film or what’s in the series.

RB: Didn’t we do ABBA songs sung by the Bee Gees? I don’t think that’s made it.

SC: That’s when you know it’s time to pull up the drawbridge. “Let’s do the Bee Gees singing ABBA songs.” It sounds like you’re really rooting through the attic.

RB: It depends entirely on how it’s done!

SC: Yes, of course it does. But just on face value, it sounds like the sound of distant barrels being scraped.

[ Warning: Some spoilers ahead. ]

Steve, as I understand your father passed away a couple years ago. And there is a variation of this is in The Trip to Greece , though obviously different, with an actor and everything. What kind of conversation did you have beforehand with Michael Winterbottom about this plot development? I assume he checked with you before writing it into the film. SC: Michael asked me about it, and would I mind it. And I was like, “Uh …” I thought about it for a second. But a little bit of distance has passed now. And, of course, it’s very sad, and it happened quite suddenly, and it’s one of those things where I could have said, “No, that’s too personal.” But I work with Michael so much, and The Trip is already a bit personal, so I thought, Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t really want at this stage to start saying, “This is out of bounds,” or anything. And I trust him. In actual fact, in parallel, the actor who played my father in the first film also died, in the interim.

Was there a sense when you were shooting The Trip to Greece that reality was intruding a bit more? Watching all four films, back to back, I did get the sense that there was a kind of reckoning in this one. Because the trip in this one is interrupted. Steve has to go back, and it’s quite open-ended and dark. RB: I think, personally, in terms of the experience of making it, it still always divides into two things. There’s the plot-related stuff that Michael needs for the scaffolding of the piece that he will write and we will say a version of. And then there’s our flights of fancy where he’ll give us pointers and we’ll invent stuff. Typically it’ll be when we’re at a table, although often in the car. But it’s Michael’s thing. He creates from within that. If I’m being very honest, all it felt to me was — [ Laughs. ] — oh God, I shouldn’t say this, but it just felt like, Wow, more of the same . And I don’t remember it as being as funny as it is in the bits that I’ve seen now, because you need time to pass. Because there’s so much of us.

SC: I did feel, I have to say, when we were shooting the scenes of me back at home with the fictional mother of my fictional son, even though it’s a fiction and I’m in this house that I never lived in, imagining the past that I didn’t have with her, there’s an authenticity to it, and the poignancy is real for me. Sort of like a parallel reality. I imagine that if I developed dementia, I might watch it and think that was my life. Do you know what I mean? And think, Oh yes, I remember all that. Yes, that used to be my wife. Yes, that’s my son. I say that in a slightly facetious way, but what it means is that there’s definitely a resonance where I go, “Oh, yes, this seems authentic to me.”

Did you know this film would be the last one? SC: No. Not at all. We always discuss the next one. This one was not definitely the last one when we were filming it, but it felt like it definitely had that power of, “Let’s jump before pushed.” And of course Homer’s Odyssey provided the perfect structure because it’s about finding yourself and discovering the journey to self-enlightenment and the physical journey and all that rolled into one presented itself as an endgame. So, it’s good not to jump the shark. But it wasn’t a definite decision. It became apparent and then Michael said, “This is the last.” I thought, “Well, good, well, fine, great.” And Rob I think felt the same.

RB: I felt it was the last when we finished doing it, because as I say, to me it felt like we got into this template of how we do it. But I like to think that maybe one day we’d return to it.

SC: Yeah, I think in ten years’ time.

RB: Although we’ve changed visually and physically through the [previous] ten, which is quite funny to look at, it would be great now to come back in ten years maybe.

SC: I think that there’s nothing new to say, but in ten years’ time there will be things to say. I’m certain of it. It’s like when a band gets back together. When I’m about 65. Well, retirement age.

Part One of this interview ran in April.  The Trip to Greece  will be available in the U.S. on May 22, 2020. The previous  Trip  films are currently streaming on IFC Films Unlimited.

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It all started back in 2010, when British comedian Rob Brydon and actor  Steve Coogan did a TV series called  The Trip , which followed them over the course of week as they traveled England's Lake District dining out on delicious food and having free-wheeling, frequently funny conversations. The series was then edited together into  The Trip , which then inspired three more movies. After installments in Italy and Spain, Brydon and Coogan's Trip  franchise comes to an end with  The Trip to Greece . In this fourth feature, the semi-fictional versions of Rob and Steve are taking to the road and traveling across Greece as they chart the same course once taken by Odysseus. As they make their way from one hallowed historical site to another, their journey will have them making pit stops at lush restaurants with plenty of open-air seating and good food, firing off new jokes and making light of some real-life recent events (prepare for lots of fun ribbing about Coogan's BAFTA-nominated turn in 2018's  Stan & Ollie ).

During a 1-on-1 phone call with Collider, Brydon opened up, discussing not just The Trip to Greece , but also the  Trip  franchise as a whole. From learning how to make Coogan break during dinnertime scenes to his favorite meals to working with Winterbottom on these four movies, Brydon shared it all. Here's what happened.

COLLIDER: 10 years is quite a lot of time to spend with Steve Coogan. I imagine it's been quite an adventure. What have been some of your favorite bits about working alongside him for so long a time, and working on a franchise like this?

ROB BRYDON: Well, I mean, he's a remarkable man. He's larger than life creative force. He lives a very big life. He has a lot of incident and drama in his life. There's always a lot going on. It's fascinating. We know he's a brilliant creative force. So it's been hugely stimulating working with him, not without its occasional bumps in the road. When you're doing this sort of thing we're doing here, we're sort of picking holes at each other, and we sort of said we'd have a gentleman's agreement at the beginning that that was okay. But now and again, we'll have a moment.

I remember in this one, the meal we have in Piraeus where we talk about Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man , there was a moment there where I think I touched a nerve and he said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa," and we started a little fight when it broke. It has happened the other way over the years. But then it's soon forgotten. It's not dwelt upon. I think we sometimes push it just to avoid it being bland and cozy.

How has working on this series of movies impacted your life? You've been able to travel and have meals which I certainly would love to have, and I just am wondering what sort of memories or impressions you're left with after this experience.

BRYDON: Well, it's been a very fortunate experience, because what happens for Steve and myself is that these trips... It's a trip in the sense of what we're making, but it is a trip as well, and these places are curated for us. All the best bits are chosen for us. So as I look back over the 10 years, I have so many different memories sitting.

It tends to be stuff outside of the filming, because the filming is work. Then we'll have times when we're eating together, either Steve and I in the evening with the crew, perhaps, or on a day off and we've gone to visit somewhere. But I can think of many evening meals together, either just Steve and I or with the crew, enjoying a drink together, and they're very, very special.

I go back to that thing Hoffman always used to say about the number of actors at any one time who're in work. So I can take it back to that level of appreciation and just... My God, just to be working is great. Then to be working on something like this, where we've visited these amazing places. Then once we're there, we're not just speaking someone else's lines, but we're getting to create and improvise. It's one of the most creative jobs I've ever done. So it's been an entirely enjoyable experience.

Have been times, especially while filming The Trip to Greece , where you find you two are trying to make yourselves break or laugh, and if you've sort of figured out which things can make each other break, and what those might things be.

BRYDON: Well, I think I'm more of a natural performer than Steve is. I think I enjoy entertaining more than Steve does. I sometimes think of Steve as someone who's been given this incredible talent and sort of sometimes feels, "Well, I better use it then, given that I've got it," whereas I... So I quite like trying to make him laugh, and I think I probably try to make him laugh more than he tries to make me laugh.

In the first meal in this one, there's that bit where he talks about coming outside his house with a blanket to sit down and read, and then some flies come and he goes back in the house. I start reacting as if it's a wonderful anecdote that he's told on that, and he bursts into laughter. I love making him laugh, because he won't laugh at just anything. He's quite fussy. So I will enjoy that.

Then it's a lovely feeling when we do hit a rich seam, and you know it when you do. You just feel it. Sometimes you can hear titters from the crew. That's very rewarding. Sometimes you've got to go digging around for quite a while before you hit that seam, of course. But when you do, it's very rewarding.

At this point, with a fourth movie under your belt, I'm curious to know about the creative process in shaping the Trip to Greece  story and filming with Michael Winterbottom at this point; I'm just curious what that all looks like.

BRYDON: Well, with all of them, it's Michael. It's Michael Winterbottom. He is the author of the trip. I always say that he draws it and we color it in. So everything is Michael. He will contact us and say, "You guys free at a certain point?" And they speak to the agents and the diaries, and we look when could we do it, and then we meet for a lunch and he'll say... We'll have heard by then which country it is, so you'll hear it's Greece. "Oh, okay, we're going to Greece," right? Then Michael will have mapped out the route, the restaurants, in this instance, following in Odysseus's footsteps. So that's all him. That's nothing to do with us. He will have plotted out the story that, in this instance, involves Steve's family.

So we just turn up. He'll give us a little research, and typically Steve will do some. I will do none. I had thought this time I might try a bit harder so I could be a bit different. Maybe I'd know something. I just never got round to it. It's probably for the best, because I think it works better for us if... And it all is a slight exaggeration of reality that he knows more about it. He would've made an effort to learn something so that he can lord it over me, and I won't mind that. It'll bother him that I don't mind. That's the vibe that works between us.

Going back to your pre-meal comedy bits: There are so many that I could see being turned into a comedy special or a movie. I'm wondering if there's a particular bit (be it the "Come, come, Mr. Bond" mom, or the "Henry VIII as a Cockney gangster" moment) you either really enjoyed just running with, or that you could see being great fodder for something bigger outside of the movies.

BRYDON: Well, I don't know about for something bigger, but I mean, I remember in The Trip to Spain , there's the bit where we get served the two scallops , and then we start the James Bond thing as if one of them is poisoned, so we've got to turn the plate the other way around. I think that just came to us because of the way she laid the plate on the table. That would be an example of straight away, you know that's going to be good. Sometimes you spark on things and "We'll see where this goes." But we both clocked the way the plate's been put down, and I think we both had the same thought and we turned it around. We're familiar with that sort of a scene in Bond movies or spy movies. That was a delight, because we both know the grammar of those scenes. I remember that.

I also remember from The Trip to Greece , as from The Trip to Spain , early on when we talked about the Spanish Inquisition, and Steve imagines I'm on a rack and he's torturing me and stretching me on a rack, but I'm quite happy because it's going to make me a little bit taller, and things like that. I mean, there's lots of them where we got into a role. Yeah, we just get into the swing of things and really enjoy it.

There's also a point in The Trip to Greece where you ask Steve what kind of monument he would like erected in his honor. I wonder if you've ever thought about how would you like to be remembered, or what you would like to be remembered for? I know this is kind of a big, existential question, so take it as you will.

BRYDON: Well, I've always said that it doesn't bother me. I only really want to be remembered fondly by my family, right? My wife, my family, but specifically my children. I mean, that would be the greatest thing, if they went on into their life thinking they've had the best father they could possibly have. That would be just fantastic if you were this figure in their lives when they were the age that I am now, and presumably I was long gone, but I still loomed large with this wonderful, positive presence. That would be great. Failing that, a statue in a shopping center.

The Trip to Greece is reportedly said to be the final movie. Is there anything that you'll miss in particular about making these movies?

BRYDON: I'll miss the experience of traveling with that small unit, all knowing each other, all having a shorthand. Arriving in different places... On this one, all of a sudden we're arriving on Hydra, and then another time, now we're driving into Athens. That's a wonderful thing to do, and to do it with friends. Because a lot of the crew have remained the same over the years, so you become friends with them. I'll miss that. Forgive me if I've already said this. I have this comedian's instinct for getting off while they're still laughing, and I really didn't want to outstay our welcome.

Just because I'm very curious, if the door was open for a fifth movie or perhaps a TV special, would that be of interest [or] of possibility?

BRYDON: Bit farther down the road, yes. But it would need to be, I would say, at least 10 years. If Steve is still alive, then I think that would be a lovely thing to do in 10 years.

Finally, the food is incredible. I can't watch these movies without also having a snack at hand just to keep the hunger away. Is there a particular meal from The Trip to Greece  which really sticks with you?

BRYDON: Yeah, let me think now. I have to pick through them in my head. I think the one in Piraeus where we do the Dustin Hoffman stuff, that was delicious. That was adorable, actually. That was very nice. But don't ask me what it was, because I can't remember. But I just remember it was particularly nice.

The scenery, as well, was just amazing, too. I'm highly envious. It's fantastic.

BRYDON: Oh, yeah. But it's interesting. I mean, a lot of the scenery you see in this we didn't see, because of course, there are a lot of drone shots. So some of the angles I'm also seeing for the first time when I watch the finished thing. When we drive to the beach where Steve gets the phone call from home, and the drone shoots up over the car, we never got to see the bay from that angle. I think that really is quite stunning.

The Trip to Greece  is now available in select theaters, digital, and on-demand beginning Friday, May 22.

• Entertainment

‘The Trip to Greece’ Film Review: Fourth Time’s Still a Charm for Steve Coogan-Rob Brydon Talkfest

Like the three previous “Trip” movies, the two men drive around a beautiful location, eat fabulous meals, talk about stuff and try to make each other laugh, often with dueling impersonations

Toward the end of “The Trip to Greece,” British comic Rob Brydon (playing a version of himself) is talking to his wife (played by an actress who is not his wife) about the trip he’s just taken with his old pal and sparring partner Steve Coogan.

“Is it all fun and games?” she asks.

“No,” he says. “It’s mostly fun and games.”

And that’s a good way to describe “The Trip to Greece,” as well as the three other movies that Brydon and Coogan have made with director Michael Winterbottom. In 2011’s “The Trip,” 2014’s “The Trip to Italy,” 2017’s “The Trip to Spain” and now “The Trip to Greece,” the two men drive around a beautiful location, eat fabulous meals, talk about stuff and try to make each other laugh, often with dueling impersonations. And yes, it’s mostly fun and games.

It’s a modest, simple approach, and one that has remained consistently pleasing for all four movies. And if “Greece” is the end of the “Trip” saga, as all involved say it will be, it’s a satisfying and even touching way to wrap up a decade-long demonstration of the proposition that all it takes is conversation to be entertaining.

All four of the films began as six-episode British television series, which were then edited down to features for the U.S. audience. (This one was meant to receive a theatrical release, but IFC shifted to a VOD one because of the coronavirus.) And all four rely on Coogan and Brydon playing heightened versions of themselves — more competitive with each other, less secure (especially Coogan) and more argumentative about just about everything.

The location changes, but the format doesn’t; as Coogan declares early in this film, “Originality is overrated. Everything is derivative.”

“The Trip to Greece” is more of a trip through Greece — it starts in northwest Turkey, on the site of what was once Troy, and then follows the path that Odysseus takes in “The Odyssey,” passing through Hydra, Athens and Delphi on the way to what used to be Ithaca. Coogan and Brydon make the journey in six days rather than the 10 years that Odysseus took, and they don’t stop along the way to battle a giant cyclops or be tempted by the Sirens.

Instead, they chat about history and about this slightly alternative version of their lives in which Coogan is desperate to be cast in a Damien Chazelle movie (he even cried in the audition!) and Brydon loses no opportunity to mock his more famous friend, who also insists on driving every time they get in a car.

When Coogan brings up his recent film “Stan and Ollie,” in which he played comic Stan Laurel, Brydon nods approvingly. “I watched it on a BAFTA screener,” he says. “I only paused it three times to go to the kitchen.” This prompts a dinner-table version of Laurel and Hardy in which it’s Stan Laurel and Tom Hardy, who is of course as unintelligible as ever.

There’s less emphasis on impersonations than in past installments — no dueling Michael Caines this time around, though we do get dueling Dustin Hoffmans and Mick Jaggers, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger morphing into Werner Herzog and Ray Winstone as Henry VIII.

As they make their way through often-desultory ruins to world-class restaurants, we also hear a lot of the Bee Gees from Brydon, who mocks performing CPR to the beat of “Staying Alive” (“Steve’s Gonna Die” in his version), sings “Tragedy” on one car ride and makes an extended set-piece out of the Barry Gibb-penned title song from “Grease” on another leg. (It’s pretty funny and not very good, which is more charitable than what you’d say about the horrendous version of Greek singer Demis Roussos’ “Forever and Ever” that both men sing.)

All of these moments, filmed casually by Winterbottom with sporadic cutaways to scenic vistas and four-star kitchens, are reminders of what fun traveling companions Coogan and Brydon can be — not necessarily to each other, but certainly to an audience with a taste for British comics who rarely stop trying to one-up each other.

When they do stop, it’s often because a touch of outside plot intervenes. When he and Brydon arrive in Greece, Coogan runs into Kareem Alkabbani, a real-life actor he worked with in Winterbottom’s “Greed,” who asks for a ride to the refugee camp where he’s working. There’s no more to the sequence than them dropping Alkabbani off at a camp encircled by barbed wire, but it plays as if Winterbottom and the actors felt it would be tone-deaf to follow Odysseus’ path without pointing out that it’s also the site of an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

(It’s also probably a better way to deal with real life than ending “The Trip to Spain” with Coogan apparently on the verge of being kidnapped by ISIS, a cliffhanger that goes unmentioned here except in passing.)

And in the homestretch of the film, a more personal crisis intrudes with the death of Coogan’s father. In the movie, he learns about this toward the end of the trip on a phone conversation with a fictional son; in truth, Coogan’s father died in 2018, before the film was made. It feels odd, using moments from real life to give gravity to a film built around comic performances, but the “Trip” movies have always dropped in unusual and sometimes uncomfortable touches.

It also picks up on the “Odyssey” theme of returning home, and makes the final moments more emotional than you’d expect — both for Coogan and for Brydon, who is joined by his wife. (Well, an actress playing his wife.) These moments are lovely and touching, aided immeasurably by the use of Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” on the soundtrack. Winterbottom also uses music by Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and Richard Strauss, among others; he likes serious music to go with his funny movies.

As an ending to a series of films that even out-talked Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise”/”Before Sunset”/”Before Midnight” trilogy, this final sequence brings things home on a beautifully bittersweet note. Of course, words like beautiful and bittersweet aren’t really what we go to the “Trip” movies to see. Fun and games are.

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The Comic Geniuses From ‘The Trip to Greece’ Share the Best Hotels and Restaurants in the Country

Funnymen Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon muse on the highs and lows of filming their final — and most inspiring — travelogue, The Trip to Greece.

Paul Brady is the news director at Travel + Leisure and the brand's expert on cruise travel. He has been covering the travel industry for more than 15 years for outlets including Condé Nast Traveler , Skift , and The Huffington Post .

Editor’s Note: Travel might be complicated right now, but use our inspirational trip ideas to plan ahead for your next bucket list adventure.

Some people have all the luck. Over the past 10 years, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have collaborated on four iterations of The Trip, a TV series turned feature-film franchise that has taken the pair to some of Europe’s most enchanting landscapes (the Italian island of Capri and the Spanish port city of Santander) and finest restaurants (the Michelin two-starred L’Enclume in England’s Lake District). Directed by Michael Winterbottom, their final jaunt — out now on streaming platforms — is frequently hilarious and often touching, following Coogan and Brydon as they travel around Greece , visiting ancient ruins and swapping banter over decadent meals.

Their itinerary, based loosely on Homer’s Odyssey, begins at Troy, the site of which is in present-day Turkey , then carries them to historic landmarks in Athens, Delphi, and Stagira, with leisurely lunches on sun-soaked terraces and swims in the Aegean sprinkled in. “Of course we do work,” Coogan says. “But it’s wonderful.” Here, the pair reminisce on their final adventure — and share what they’ve learned from their buddy trips.

Had you been to Greece before? Any surprises on this visit?

RB: I’d been to Athens. In fact, Steve and I filmed in Greece almost 20 years ago on a different project. But this time, we were there at the beginning of June, a beautiful season, when it’s just so lush and green — that surprised me.

What were the standout restaurants?

RB: A favorite is Pirgos Mavromichali (entrées $16-$35) , in the village of Limeni. It’s on the Mani Peninsula, where we had a swimming race, and it’s a lovely setting. Over the course of the four films, the restaurant I will always remember is Il Riccio (entrées $37-$57), on Capri. It’s set on a cliff, overlooking the sea, and the food and service are wonderful.

SC: I’ve been back to Il Riccio since. In England, the first restaurant we visited to film was The Inn at Whitewell (entrées $19-$34), in the Forest of Bowland, in the northwest of the country. It also figured in my life before the trip — I’d been there as a younger person — so it has sentimental value. I’ll always go back there — probably until the day I die.

How were the hotels? Any places stick in your mind from previous films?

RB: In Athens, we stayed at the Hotel Grande Bretagne (doubles from $447) . It had a roof terrace with white tablecloths and views of the Acropolis, and I loved it.

SC: Hated it. I get uncomfortable with tablecloths. The more rustic the table, the better.

RB: Well, there we are. I loved having my croissant in the morning while looking at the Acropolis. Also in Greece, in the port city of Kavála, we arrived late at night on the ferry, and stayed at the Imaret (doubles from $382), a charming hotel with a meandering layout, lots of stone, and individually styled guest rooms. It was very higgledy-piggledy.

SC: On our trip to Spain, in the northern city of Sigüenza, we stayed at the Parador de Sigüenza (doubles from $109) , which was bombed by Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

RB: It’s where they made the Marlon Brando movie "Christopher Columbus: The Discovery," and we actually shot in the same room he filmed in.

A version of this story first appeared in the June 2020 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline A Comic Odyssey.

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The Trip to Greece

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Rent The Trip to Greece on Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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The Trip to Greece sees this series subject to the laws of diminishing returns, but Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan remain reliably enjoying company.

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Michael Winterbottom

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The Trip to Greece defies labeling as a comedy or drama

It’s more than Michael Caine and Mick Jagger impressions

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It’s tempting to describe Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s Trip movies and shows as comedies. After all, the basic premise is that Coogan and Brydon, playing exaggerated versions of themselves, go on restaurant tours, one-upping each other the entire way via competing impressions of other celebrities, and jokes that become increasingly barbed. Their impressions of Michael Caine took on such a life of their own that in 2014, the two men were invited to perform at a night celebrating Caine at Royal Albert Hall.

But there’s more to the series than just jokes. Through 2010’s The Trip , 2014’s The Trip to Italy , 2017’s The Trip to Spain , and the new, purportedly final installment, The Trip to Greece , director Michael Winterbottom and his two stars have crafted a series that defies any single label.

After three trips together, Coogan and Brydon slip into a fourth with ease, as if they’d never left. This time around, they’re set to retrace Odysseus’ footsteps, going from Troy to Ithaca. At first it seems like business as usual, as the pair get to riffing immediately. But the passage of time changes all things, including Coogan and Brydon, and it’s been a decade since they first toured the north of England.

Four installments of the series have allowed a sense of intimacy to grow between the two men. Beyond the fact that Coogan and Brydon’s fictionalized selves seem transparent enough to be real — they air their petty grievances with no apparent regard for the cameras, and Coogan can’t seem to stop mentioning the BAFTA awards he’s won — four movies’ worth of companionship create a sense of camaraderie with the audience. It’s the same kind of emotional investment that people get out of, say, the Marvel cinematic universe, or a beloved TV series. (The film versions are edited together from six-episode seasons that air on British TV.)

While it’s true that The Trip to Greece will be most rewarding for those who have followed Coogan and Brydon since the beginning, it still stands well enough on its own. The gauntlet thrown at Coogan feels emotionally powerful without any past setup: as he travels, he receives updates on his father’s failing health, but he doesn’t share that with Brydon. Oblivious, Brydon keeps making jokes and ribbing Coogan, as Coogan wrestles with whether he ought to return home.

The pall of death automatically makes The Trip to Greece a more somber affair than its predecessors, but doesn’t make it devoid of fun. Coogan has personal matters on his mind, but he still goofs around with Brydon, and if anything, their rapport seems even more genuine. The barbs they fire at each other seem more in good fun than in malice, and they often can’t resist laughing at jokes made at their own expense.

As in life, tragedy and comedy aren’t mutually exclusive. The only constant is the need for some reassurance that we aren’t alone in the world, which Coogan struggles with as he might be on the verge of losing a parent, and which Brydon acts upon by inviting his wife, who sat out every other trip, to join him on the last leg of his current journey. Even the interstitial scenes, which in the previous movies included a re-creation of a scene from The Godfather , are grimmer this time out. (And since they’re in black and white, they evoke Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal more than they echo any past comedy, with intense close-ups on Coogan’s features and eerie, dark-robed figures cropping up in the background.)

Throughout the series, Winterbottom has offered his stars more space to take a breath and reflect on basic, emotional human necessities, and The Trip to Greece is the most ponderous installment of the bunch. Moments of silent contemplation abound, bookended by the two men singing in an echoing cavern, and Brydon making Grease /Greece jokes. The film also ends with the biggest breath yet. The Trip to Greece is meant as the final installment of the series, but Winterbottom concludes it on an open note. The Trip may be over, but the journey was memorable.

The Trip to Greece is available on VOD now.

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The Trip to Greece is a fitting send-off (or so they say)

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan are a little older and, surprisingly, a little wiser in this fourth film in the Trip series.

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It’s a bit surprising that the Trip movies have made it to four installments. What started as a pretty niche project for stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and director Michael Winterbottom (whose varied and unpredictable filmography has straightened out somewhat in recent years) has become a surprisingly dependable and unified saga. I’m not in the business of telling you that it’s like the Avengers of middle-aged British actors eating pan-seared scallops by the sea, but that’s basically where we find ourselves when The Trip to Greece begins. 

Purportedly the last film in the series (something I find hard to believe, especially considering that the film has more or less ignored the previous installment’s Twilight Zone -ish gag ending), The Trip to Greece finds Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon once again paired up for an all-expenses-paid trip through the Greek countryside. As always, the trip is meant to spearhead a series of high-falutin’ tourism articles piggybacking on their relative fame, but neither Coogan nor Brydon seem particularly concerned with the work this time around. Coogan continues to fret about his career — an acclaimed turn in Stan & Ollie seems to have done little for the serious-actor phase of his life — while Brydon’s wannabe-cad ways have eroded, leaving him homesick and worried about his wife and kids.

As always, The Trip to Greece is relatively plotless, mainly constructed around lengthy conversational improvisations between Coogan and Brydon. As always, celebrity impressions are a frequent topic of conversation, as are intellectual dick-wagging contests as Coogan, desperate to be taken seriously in every possible sphere of his existence, chides and chastizes Brydon for not dropping knowledge about the ancient Greeks at every opportunity. The lightly aggressive friendship between the two has always been a central theme of the Trip films. Both insist that they barely tolerate each other, but by the fourth film, the viewer becomes increasingly convinced that they may be each other’s only friend. 

If the three previous installments have been about Brydon and (especially) Coogan vehemently denying their move towards middle age (be it by constantly arguing for their own continued relevance or picking up women to prove something to themselves or the other), The Trip to Greece finds them firmly entrenched in what they feared most. Death, irrelevance and the absence of “boring” comfort hang over the laddish Coogan, who has spent the last 10 years making decisions like a young man with little to show for it in the long run. (Of course, even the fictional Coogan’s success, which mirrors his real-life career more or less to a T, hangs like an albatross around his neck. What’s the point of doing something good if it doesn’t lead to doing something better immediately after?)

It sounds heavy and I suppose it is, to some extent. For how loose and genial and undeniably hilarious these films have always been, they’ve also been infused with a melancholy that now bubbles up to the surface rather obviously. Brydon and Coogan have never been this dismissive about the beauty around them. Previous films had them rave about the plates set in front of them, which are now consumed half-assedly between two competing Marlon Brando impressions. The films have always been a send-up of privilege to some extent, but now the protagonists seem consumed by it, forever trying to clamber on top of expectations they’ve set upon themselves.

It may be an unnecessarily portentous way to look at what is ultimately another choice installment in one of the great hangout-movie series in recent memory. The incredible ease with which Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan slip back into these heightened, egotistical versions of themselves makes even the most melancholic beats of The Trip to Greece a pleasure. It’s mainly a fans-only affair, however. I find it hard to imagine how someone who hasn’t seen the previous films could really grapple with what’s going on here — quality impressions or not. ■

The Trip to Greece is on VOD now.

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Rob Brydon confirms The Trip to Greece marks end of series

Brydon and Steve Coogan play versions of themselves in the food-oriented franchise.

Senior Writer

As film franchises go, it's hard to imagine one that looks more pleasurable to make than The Trip , which began with the 2010 movie and continued with three sequels: 2014's The Trip to Italy , 2017's The Trip to Spain , and now The Trip to Greece . In each of the films, British actors Rob Brydon ( Gavin & Stacey ) and Steve Coogan ( Philomena ) play competitive, and at times grotesque, versions of themselves while traveling around and dining at high-end restaurants. Given the seemingly enjoyable nature of the enterprise, why have the two stars decided that the new film will be their last trip together — or at least, the last one they will take in front of director Michael Winterbottom 's cameras?

"I was surprised it went as far as four — or as far as one, to be honest with you," Brydon tells EW. "I think it’s a feeling of wanting to quit while we’re ahead. It just felt like an ending."

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ROB BRYDON: Michael Winterbottom does all that. Steve and I, we really do just turn up and color in the outline that Michael creates. He decides the country, the story — such as it is — he decides the literary references, so in this case Odysseus. That’s all Michael. I always feel when I talk to journalists, they sound slightly disappointed that we were not more involved in the thinking of it and that we don’t have specifically good memories of the meals. It’s really him, and then we step in and perform.

Oh. See, my next question was going to be, "What’s the most memorable meal you had on this trip?"

[ Laughs ] The thing with the meals is, yes, in many ways it’s glorious, and my memories of it are of a wonderful time, particularly now in the situation we’re in. They’re memories of this wonderful travel where, importantly, everything is curated for you, so you really don’t have to think, you just drink in the experience. But nonetheless there is the creative work to be done, the coming up with interesting and funny things to say in the improvised moments, of which there are many. When it comes to the meals, I always have to rack my brains because while we’re eating the meals, we are inventing material. So, for most of the time I’m sitting there thinking, "What am I going to say next?"

What is the difference between the Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan we see in these movies and what you are like in real life?

The biggest difference is we’re not combative. I don’t niggle at him. We don’t sit around doing impressions. All of that is just looking for comic constructs, looking for conflict and drama and comedy. In The Trip [films] I’m constantly sort of undermining him and mocking his achievements, whereas the reality is I would say, "Tell me about this" or "What happened when you did this?" That’s usually what we do. Because he’s always been off traveling and doing something, so he’ll tell me about that. It’s just not niggly. And this idea of arguing about who does the best impressions, neither of us could care less. So it’s just far calmer. We talk about middle-aged, middle-class things.

That’s very disappointing, Rob, I've got to say.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the film now seems like its from a completely different time.

I know, it really does.

Do you think this is the best time or the worst time to be releasing this film?

I think it depends if you’re a glass-half-full or half-empty person, I suppose. If you’re a glass-half-full person, you'll say, "Fantastic!" and if you’re not you’ll say, "I don’t want to see that." But yeah, it gives it a whole other angle. You don’t even have to to look at something like this; I only have to look at photos on my phone where I’m stood with a few other people indoors and they strike me as peculiar. I would like to think that one of the reasons people may want to watch this is simply the sheer escapism of it. I do think of the four of them this is definitely the prettiest to look at.

The Trip to Greece will be released May 22 in select theaters and on Digital and VOD.

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Where was The Trip To Greece filmed? Season 4 filming locations for Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s restaurant odyssey

Fans are no doubt already chomping at the bit to see what the two comedians have in store for the final dispatch of the mockumentary.

The countdown has begun: there are just hours left before the last ever series of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan ‘s The Trip premieres on Sky One.

Fans are no doubt already chomping at the bit to see what the two comedians have in store for the fourth and final dispatch of the mockumentary. This time, the pair will eat and argue their way around Greece , taking in temples, stunning scenery, plenty of sunshine, and aeons of history.

As is traditional, there will be plenty of self-indulgence, both conversational and consumptive, as the pair slum around ancient ruins in sandals.

But where exactly did they visit for the show?

Here are some of the impressive filming locations you can actually visit.

Temple of Apollo at Delphi

Dating from the fourth century BC, the ancient Greek ruins are the remains of a temple that was built by architects on top of two earlier temples. Apollo was recognised as the God of many things in Greece, including the sun and light, the arts, healing and diseases, and archery.

He was the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, and the son of Zeus and Leto. The ancient Greeks considered the centre of the world to be in Delphi, marked by the stone monument known as the omphalos. It is on the the south-western slope of Mount Parnassus, overlooking a coastal plain to the south and the valley of Phocis.

The Ancient Agora of Athens

Steve and Rob grace the Ancient Agora of Athens with their presence during the series. The marble structure near the Greek capital is thought to be the best known example of an agora in existence.

The Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus

Much mirth ensued at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, an ancient venue in the Greek city of Epidaurus. It was dedicated to the ancient god of medicine, Asclepius.

Island of Hydra

Located in the Aegean Sea between the Myrtoan Sea and the Argolic Gulf, Hydra is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece

It was known in ancient times as Hydrea, because of the numerous natural springs on the island.

The Diros Caves

One of the most important natural sites in Greece, many Paleolithic and Neolithic artifacts have been uncovered in the Diros Caves, marking it out to be one of the earliest places ever inhabited by humans in the country.

Nestor’s Palace

Around 17km north of Pylos lies Nestor’s Palace, the best preserved if all Mycenaean palaces. It is described in Homer’s Odyssey’ as the court of the hero Nesto, who, legend has it, went on the voyage of the Argonauts.

The Trip to Greece is set to be broadcast from Tuesday 3 March at 10pm on Sky One. It will also be available on NOW TV.

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Every fancy restaurant and hotel in The Trip To Greece

It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since we last heard the comically nasal Michael Caine callings (and the fabulously high-pitched purrings of Mick Jagger) from Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as they competitively squawked over the top of one another, like two jousting birds, at sunlit European tables.

The Trip To Spain , thought to be the last of The Trip saga, left on unsettling terms, with Coogan stranded in North Africa approached by a man in a balaclava yelling “Allahu Akbar” . Thankfully, this hasn’t spelled the end of Coogan, as the double act return for what they’re officially calling their final series, which takes place in Greece.

Fittingly, they follow Homer’s Odyssey , but opt for luxury hotels and picture-perfect costal views, rather than ten years of war and slaughter. So as you watch along, bookmark these places as beautiful hotspots to bicker in.

Episode one: Troy, Assos, Kavala

The series starts in the site of ancient Troy in western Turkey. After visiting the ruins, Coogan and Brydon have lunch at the Adatepe Ida Blue Hotel, a five-star hotel with lush views of Mount Ida. Adatepe Ida Blue Hotel. idablue.com.tr

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They then visit the Temple Of Athena in Assos before travelling on a private boat from Assos to Lesvos. In Lesvos they visit the Moria refugee camp and then travel overnight on the Blue Star Ferry from Lesvos to Kavala on the northern mainland of Greece.

Episode two: Kavala, Pelion, Pinakates

The pair have breakfast at the five-star Imaret Hotel in Kavala, known for its late Ottoman architecture. Imaret Hotel in Kavala. imaret.gr

They visit Ancient Stagira and then travel to have lunch in Halkidki at the Danai Beach resort. They travel by speedboat to the “Pelion”: eating at the café on Damouchari beach, where Mamma Mia! was filmed.

After, they stay up in the hills at the five-star Sakali Mansion in Pinakates, where you’ll see those breathtaking views. Sakali Mansion. sakalihotel.gr

Episode three: Piraeus and Athens

After breakfast at Sakali Mansion, they then drive to visit Ancient Delphi. Lunch takes place at Varoulko Seaside in Piraeus, which won its first Michelin star in 2002 (the first one ever awarded to a restaurant serving Greek food in Greece). Varoulko Seaside. varoulko.gr

After lunch they drive to Athens visiting the Ancient Agora in Athens and staying at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. The five-star hotel has views of the Acropolis, regal Syntagma Square and the Parliament, Lycabettus Hill and the original Olympic Stadium. Hotel Grande Bretagne. marriott.com

Episode four: Hydra

Departing from the Hotel Grand Bretagne, they drive to the Ancient Epidaurus Amphitheatre then travel by ferry from Ermioni to Hydra. In Hydra they eat at Omilos Restaurant, famed for its celebrity clientele including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (cue impressions aplenty). Omilos Restaurant. omilos-hydra.com

They stay at the Hydrae Hotel, a four-star hotel, set in historic mansions with a Riviera-style view. Hydrae Hotel. hydrea.gr

Episode five: ‘Mani’

They have breakfast in Hydra and then travel by boat to the “Mani”. There they stay at the four-star hotel Pirgos Mavromichali, where they eat lunch, before visiting the Caves Of Diros. Pirgos Mavromichali. pirgosmavromichali.gr

Episode six: Pylos, Ithaca

Coogan and Brydon drive from the Mani to Pylos, where they visit Pylos Castle and eat at Poseidonia Restaurant, which overlooks the bay of Navarino. Poseidonia Restaurant. pylosposeidonia.gr

Nearby, they visit the Palace Of Nestor and then the beautiful Voidokilia beach. After, they drive from Pylos to Patras and travel by ferry to Kefalonia and finally to Ithaca, staying at the five-star Perantzada Hotel. Perantzada Hotel. perantzadahotel.com

The Trip To Greece is out on 3 March Sky One and Now TV.

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When is The Trip to Greece on TV? Trailer and air-date for the final series

Greece is the word for Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon

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Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan have taken themselves off to Greece for their latest series of The Trip, so expect plenty of moussaka and feta and bickering as the two comedians eat their way around the Greek islands.

"Succulently seasoned with laughter, impressions and scintillating conversation, The Trip to Greece is sure to satisfy viewers’ palettes as the duo lock horns over tragedy, comedy, myth and history," Sky One promises.

Here's what you need to know...

When is The Trip to Greece on TV?

The Trip to Greece will be broadcast from Tuesday 3rd March at 10pm on Sky One and NOW TV .

In June 2019 Rob Brydon revealed that filming had officially begun on the six 30-minute episodes, sharing this photo:

More like this

The show was announced in January 2019. In May, Brydon tweeted this photo of himself and Steve Coogan making plans for the show over a nice lunch:

What is The Trip to Greece about?

The Trip is a British TV sitcom series which began in 2010, starring comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictionalised versions of themselves on a restaurant tour of northern England.

Co-created by Brydon and Coogan themselves and directed by Michael Winterbottom, it was well-received by viewers and critics alike, and was later edited into a feature film.

After the success of The Trip, the two men decided to take their show on the road – launching a second series and feature film, The Trip to Italy (2014), and a third series and feature film, The Trip to Spain (2017).

They also made the leap from BBC Two to Sky Atlantic .

Sky’s Head of Comedy Jon Mountague says: "What a joy to go island hopping with the incomparable Steve and Rob. Greece is the birthplace of democracy but more importantly the birthplace of Michael Winterbottom’s latest vision, which we can’t wait to share with our customers. Yamas!"

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Is there a Trip to Greece trailer?

Not yet, but keep this page bookmarked and we'll bring you a teaser for The Trip to Greece as soon as one materialises...

Will there be a Trip to Greece film?

Like 2010's The Trip and its two sequels, 2014's The Trip to Italy and 2016's The Trip to Spain, will both air as a six-part series and be re-edited into a single feature film.

The film version of The Trip to Greece has been acquired for US distribution by IFC Films (who also released the three previous outings) and is expected to make its cinema debut in summer 2020.

“We have traveled all over Europe with Steve, Rob, and Michael in what is the most successful and tasty independent franchise and we can’t wait to present US audiences with the latest trip to Greece,” said Arianna Bocco, EVP of acquisitions and productions of IFC Films.

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Where is The Trip to Greece filmed?

The fourth series, The Trip to Greece, is set to follow the same format as the previous series as Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan eat their way around the Greek islands.

The duo will be sampling the culinary delights of Assos, Kavala, Stagira, Athens, Epidaurus, Hydra and Plyos – and many other "beautiful Greek hot spots".

Why is The Trip ending?

Coogan, Brydon and Winterbottom confirmed at a press launch for The Trip to Greece in February 2020 that their fourth outing together would be their last .

"I was going to say quit while you're ahead but if that was the case we would have quit with [series] three," Coogan quipped.

"But quit while you're not far behind. Jump before you're pushed. We made a joke about being repetitive in this one but I think making jokes about being repetitive about being repetitive gets a bit thin.

"I'm sure Rob's still got a few years left in him so we'll see a few interesting things. I'll still work with Michael... and I'll still go for lunch with Rob."

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Rob Brydon's secret on how comedians make us laugh

If you think a joke is all about a hilarious story or a simple set-up and punchline, Rob Brydon thinks you're having a laugh.

The Barbie and Gavin and Stacey star is one of the UK's most respected and well-loved comedians but has revealed a secret on how to make you all crack up.

If you listen to Brydon, it's not necessarily all about what you say but it's how you tell them.

"It's all about how am I communicating this idea," said the host of hit BBC show Would I Lie to You . "There's nothing else."

Brydon has sold out venues across the country doing stand-up shows and the 59-year-old Welshman says he crafts and pores over every word he says on stage and TV.

"Someone with a comedic mind will always be thinking of economy, how can you do it in as a fewer words as possible," Brydon told BBC's analysis editor Ros Atkins in his new Radio 4 podcast .

"It's one of the few times I shout at the screen when someone is using too many words.

"When I have a joke I think about how can I streamline it, what words are really important."

Brydon, who also stars alongside fellow comedian and friend Steve Coogan in BBC's The Trip , isn't someone that writes new material on to a computer or piece of paper, he immediately records it as a voice note into his phone.

"Often the way you say it into your phone is perfect because the idea comes formed," he said.

"The important thing is you catch the idea when it comes to you, don't think 'I'll remember that later' because inevitably you won't - and if you do, the words won't be the same and authentic."

Brydon tests his new material on unsuspecting friends and family who don't know they're being used as comedy guinea pigs.

"I'll slip new stuff into conversation," he added. "Not in the form of 'what do you think of this?' but naturally and see how it goes.

"I'll then have a go on stage. The audience will bash away at a joke as if they're in a body shop getting dents out of a car. Their response will tell you all you want to know."

It's not just how efficient your vocabulary is for Brydon, it's timing too.

"You've got to give the audience the time to get the joke," he said.

"A comedian's mind works very quickly. There can be a temptation to rush to the punchline. It can surprise you how long it takes for the penny to drop in an audience."

Brydon is a guest in Atkins's new podcast and both agree, slowing down delivery - especially under pressure - allows you to feel "more in control and communicate with more confidence".

"The audience has to believe you're in charge and you have to project confidence, said Brydon.

"That doesn't have to be bombastic arrogance, it can be a quiet confidence. If I'm on stage and a performance isn't doing as well as I'd like, I will slow down.

"The natural thing for humans to do when they panic is to speed up and go a little bit faster.

"Imagine you're in an accident and the paramedic turns up, you don't want to see panic in them. You want them to be relaxed because you need them to be relaxed."

Atkins hopes tips from professionals like Brydon can help give insightful tips on how to be most effective communicator.

"When we communicate well, we give ourselves the best chance," Atkins points out.

"If you think about it, we're all communicating every day. Whether we're sending a text or email, doing a presentation at work or even going to a doctor's appointment."

In his seven-part podcast, Atkins picked various recurring themes.

"Among them was to look at it from the perspective of the people you're trying to reach," he said.

"The more you can empathise with the information they might want to know, the better than chance people will engage in you.

"And although written and and verbal communication are related, they can be very different as how you write an email isn't necessarily the best approach if you're speaking to someone."

Atkins is a Brydon fan and admired his "particularly effective way of communicating" so sat down with the comedian from Baglan, near Port Talbot in south Wales, to find the key behind his success.

"He uses his voice brilliantly, delivers jokes brilliantly and I felt it likely he put a huge amount of thought into how he does it," said Atkins.

Brydon admitted that although he may seem calm and composed in front of a camera or audience, his mind is always doing overtime.

"You can be projecting a confident guy but thinking in you're head, that's not very good," he said,

"You're saying to yourself 'you rushed that bit, why didn't they react to that or you can stretch that joke out more'. That's always going on my head and sometimes it can be very negative.

"The thing is you're always judging it against the best it's ever been and you have to learn not to do that, it can't be like that all of the time. But evaluating is constant."

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