Imitations of lives: ageing men, vocal mimicry and performing celebrity in The Trip

This essay examines the role of the voice and vocal performance in the BAFTA award-winning BBC2 semi-improvised sitcom series, The Trip (2010a). Starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, the two men embark on a culinary road trip around Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Lake District in the interests of sightseeing and food reviewing. Behind the premise of the series being about, as Coogan explains, `restaurant celebrities and their fashion-grabbing with food' (Thorpe 2010) lies an increasingly poignant meditation on ageing and its relationship to masculinity and the male body, fame and celebrity. On this alternative menu is unease with the crunching of gears from youth to middle age, of the ageing process and all that it entails while in the media spotlight. This essay develops these themes in relation to the role of the voice and vocal performance-impersonations, crafting characters based on devising a distinctive voice - to offer a peculiar kind of meditation on the very nature of modern celebrity and ageing in the media.