It’s kinda like a culinary 7 UP, three pictures in seven years, the latest THE TRIP TO SPAIN.

Seven yeas ago, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon , under the direction of Michael Winterbottom, embarked on a tasty tour of England called THE TRIP, where they gourmandised and performed duelling impressions in a hip, flip and funny film that had us laughing in the British Isles.

The film spawned THE TRIP TO ITALY, with more gutsy gourmandising with gusto and impressario impressions of Michael Caine, Al Pacino and Sean Connery.

THE TRIP TO SPAIN is more of the same with more impressive impressions, this time with the additions of Roger Moore, David Bowie and Anthony Hopkins in full Bligh bounty. The Moore jousting comes about specifically because of the locale, where the Moores’ left behind an impressive array of architecture.

Putting Steve’s Range Rover on the ferry, the pair sail to Spain then drive through a taste tempting tapas tour to the accompaniment of Windmills of Your Mind. Yes, it’s an allusion to Don Quixote tilting at windmills, but Brydon’s dry meandering wit links it this way – Noel Harrison had the hit version of the song. Noel Harrison was Rex Harrison’s son. And Rex Harrison sang The Rain in Spain. Ole!

The Cervantes analogy is definitely and drolly pursued with Coogan as the Don and Brydon as Sancho Panza, as if Winterbottom is playing at being Terry Gilliam.

THE TRIP TO SPAIN is a voyage around a quasi fictional infarction (from the Latin infarctus, meaning stuffed into) of the two real flesh and blood characters. These fictional traits are stuffed into the factual where the audience is at odds to know where the reality ends and the fantasy begins. It’s an impression, and so the ad infinitum, (some, unkindly, may say ad nauseum), impressions become the film’s trope. It is certainly the film’s shtick.

Coogan and Brydon are the 21st century Crosby and Hope, bringing silliness, charisma, storytelling and nostalgia with more than a wink and a nod to insider jokes from television and movies.

If orthodoxy is the grave of invention, then Coogan, Brydon and Winterbottom seem to be whistling past the cemetery.

More than a moreish morsel of madcap mirth, THE TRIP TO SPAIN takes a serious and sinister turn towards the end, either flagging a finale to the series or a further fling possibly titled The Trip to Tripoli.