Neil & Martin's Bon Voyage is a new three-part series following the duo as they mark 40 years of friendship with a trip to some of the country's most beautiful regions including the Dordogne River, the vineyards of Bordeaux and the peaks of the Pyrénées.
Along the way they see the famous white horses of the Camargue, try to paint like Van Gogh in Arles and enjoy a tipple on top of Europe's largest sand dune.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1583517504/1742610876/articles/zWlmlauhttVR77GNlKsys/3811226237.jpg]
But their favourite part of the trip was simply being together for the longest amount of time since the 90s. Neil said: "Fame came so quickly it was like being shot out of a cannon."
He added: "The best thing about this trip was we were given licence to hang out together for three weeks. In the past, we've seen each other for a meal or a weekend here, weekend there. To be brought together was just great."
The pair first met four decades ago backstage at a production of Peter Pan in Bristol where Neil was playing a pirate and Martin was visiting a friend who was playing the title role.
While Martin was still unknown in 1984, Neil was already on TV, playing Rocky in the STV drama Boon.
Neil, 62, recalled: "We got it together and there were certain haunts and our careers were on a similar sort of pathway..."
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1583517504/1742610876/articles/zWlmlauhttVR77GNlKsys/4462847844.jpg]
But Martin interrupted: "No they weren't! You were hugely successful, you were in Boon, you had a mobile phone and your own Volkswagen Golf."
By 1992, the boys had become close pals and were then cast together in Men Behaving Badly. They played cheeky beer-guzzling geezers Gary and Tony opposite Caroline Quentin and Leslie Ash, who starred as their love interests Dorothy and Deborah.
And just as Tony and Gary were never without a pint on the hit sitcom, Neil and Martin explore their love of alcoholic drinks in this U&Gold series.
The first episode opens with the pair enjoying a beverage on top of a sand dune before Martin arrives at Neil's French home and gifts him an open bottle of booze, apologising, "I got thirsty in the night."
[https://magtag.magzter.com/n_api/magtag/2032740/extractedimages/87/1463246341.jpg?timestamp=1742633180190]
However, Martin, 63, blames the editors for making it look like they spent more time drinking than exploring the countryside. "Is there a lot of us drinking in it?" he asked innocently before chuckling, "Well, they've done that on purpose."
Neil admitted they clinked glasses so many times they could get a fourth episode out of that alone. He joked: "You could get an hou...