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Wales Online
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Rob Brydon makes announcement over future of The Trip
Rob Brydon makes announcement over future of The Trip The comedian and actor will be joined by Steve Coogan once again in a brand new series of The Trip Rob Brydon will be reprising his role in the sitcom series The Trip (Image: Getty Images ) Gavin & Stacey star Rob Brydon's series The Trip has been renewed for a new series. The Trip, in which the actor stars alongside fellow comedian and actor Steve Coogan, will return for its fifth series titled The Trip to the Northern Lights. According to Sky the brand new series will be in six parts and will see the duo travel the Scandinavian countries. In the past the pair have travelled through parts of the UK, Italy, Spain and Greece. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter. They will also be rejoined by renowned British director Michael Winterbottom, who was also behind This England and 24 Hour Party People. Both Coogan and Brydon play fictionalised versions of themselves in the sitcom show, which follows them on their travels as they stay in hotels, dine in plush restaurants, and perform a series of impersonations. The synopsis for the upcoming series reads: "Rob, 60, and Steve – still very much 59 – set off to explore northern Europe's wildest reaches – from sculptural Swedish hotels to remote Norwegian fishing huts – delivering their trademark blend of wit, rivalry and playful introspection. "Along the way, they reflect on ageing, ambition, family and fame – mostly through the lens they know best: themselves – from podcasting spats and Bafta one-upmanship to debates on Bond, Bergman, and whether they'll ever retire. Equal parts sitcom, travelogue and midlife reckoning, The Trip to the Northern Lights is Coogan and Brydon at their bickering, brilliant best." Article continues below The Trip to the Northern Lights will be available on Sky and Now in the UK and Ireland but the air date has not yet been confirmed. Following the news that the fifth series was renewed Coogan said: "I'm delighted that Michael Winterbottom has managed to persuade me at the age of 59 to join Rob, aged 60, to squeeze the last few drops of comedy from a bottle that we both thought was pretty much empty." Brydon added: "I'm so pleased to be heading out on a Trip once again, this time to beautiful Scandinavia and how lovely to do it while Steve Coogan, Michael Winterbottom, and I still have most of our faculties." Article continues below The Welsh actor said goodbye to his beloved character, Uncle Bryn, in Gavin & Stacey: The Finale on Christmas Day last year. Meanwhile Coogan starred in the comedy-drama film The Penguin Lessons last year as well as ITV's docudrama The Reckoning about the disgraced DJ and media personality Jimmy Savile.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon announce The Trip's return with season five in the Northern Lights
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have announced a new series of their much-loved travel programme The Trip, which was previously believed to be finished for good after the Greece-set fourth series in 2020. Series five of the show will see Coogan, 59, and Brydon, 60, trade the Mediterranean sunshine for the rugged beauty of Northern Europe as they journey through Scandinavia in search of 'fine food, wry conversation and a glimpse of the elusive Northern Lights'. Across six episodes, directed again by Michael Winterbottom (This England, 24 Hour Party People), Coogan and Brydon will explore the wildest riches of Northern Europe, including sculptural Swedish hotels and remote Norwegian fishing huts. 'I'm delighted that Michael Winterbottom has managed to persuade me at the age of 59 to join Rob, aged 60, to squeeze the last few drops of comedy from a bottle that we both thought was pretty much empty,' Coogan said of the forthcoming series. Meanwhile, Brydon added of the project: 'I'm so pleased to be heading out on a Trip once again, this time to beautiful Scandinavia and how lovely to do it while Steve Coogan, Michael Winterbottom and I still have most of our faculties.' Coogan and Brydon were adamant that the fourth series of The Trip would be the end, stating in 2020: 'I was going to say quit while you're ahead but if that was the case we would have quit with three. '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.' Yet, back in February, Coogan inadvertently announced The Trip season five when he plead in court to avoid a driving ban for speeding at almost 100mph. 'I have a series of important film commitments scheduled for 2025, many of which involve driving as a central component of the work,' he wrote in a letter addressed to Birmingham magistrates court. 'I am due to appear in a well-established TV series called The Trip (with Rob Brydon), which as the title suggests requires me to drive.' The six-part series will commence shooting later this year on location in Scandinavia. However, an air date is yet to be announced. Previous series of The Trip are available on Sky and NOW.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Richard II at the Bridge Theatre review: Jonathan Bailey is electric as the flawed king
Jonathan Bailey gives the best performance I've ever seen of Shakespeare's flawed monarch, an erratic tyrant who gains dignity once deposed. This might sound like faint praise since major London productions of the play are rare. But the two other Richards I recall are David Tennant and Fiona Shaw, so props to the star of Bridgerton and Wicked. Bailey inhabits and humanizes the king in a clean, clear, martial staging from Nicholas Hytner that feels right for our times. Altogether this is a winningly bold combination of casting, programming and cultural curation to follow the Bridge's joyful post-Covid moneyspinner, Guys and Dolls. There the actors rubbed shoulders with the audience. Here we make up a horseshoe of spectators around an oblong stage thrusting into the auditorium; at one point, we become witnesses at a show trial. Bailey swaggers on to Succession-style music, in a simple crown but with a bespoke frock coat and sockless feet in velvet slippers, setting him apart from courtiers in suits or jeans. A saturnine beard gives an impish frame to his imperious behavior. In short order Richard exiles his troublesome cousin and potential rival Henry Bullingbrook (striking newcomer Royce Pierreson) and seizes Bullingbrook's late father John of Gaunt's estate to undertake a foolish war in Ireland. Where he loftily believes his divine right justifies any caprice, Bullingbrook is more plain-spoken and pragmatic in courting nobles' favour. Yet when he challenges Richard – in this case, by training a massive field gun on the theatre's balcony where Bailey stands spotlit in a white shift – he becomes a traitor. Richard, meanwhile, is transformed through grief over the loss of his kingdom into a kind of Christ figure, a metamorphosis Bailey achieves with great skill. As Hytner has said, he speaks Shakespeare's verse as if born to it. The play has some of Shakespeare's finest poetry (including Gaunt's 'This England' speech, delivered well by an understudy at the performance I attended due to the indisposition of Clive Wood). There are echoes of Hamlet in Richard's reflective soliloquy on landing back in Wales, and of King Lear in his character arc. The ruthless plotting and politicking – opponents here are dispatched with a bullet to the back of the neck - spark associations with Shakespeare's other Tudor history plays: it's boggling to remember he wrote them in seemingly random order over two decades. Still, Richard II, with its rigid structure and strict double-narrative about two different styles of kingship, is never going to be a crowd-pleaser unless it's by star casting. Hence Bailey. He commands the stage and even allows a little camp to seep into the character (Richard's marriage to his shopaholic wife may be transactional). He doesn't sugar the king's brattish reluctance to cede the crown but in later speeches attains a stricken grandeur. Hytner's production brims with top-notch character actors, including Michael Simkins as a dogged Duke of York and Christopher Osikanlu Colquhoun as a suave Duke of Northumberland. It also has a future star in Royce Pierreson. Bullingbrook is only his third professional stage role: he brings to it a great sense of command. At the end, Bailey quite rightly called him on stage to share his join his solo curtain call. Bridge Theatre, to May 10;
