Strictly duo should ditch the lame banter and just keep dancing . . .

One of Britain’s biggest exports to Italy at the moment appears to be TV presenters. Amanda holden and Alan Carr have recently been renovating a run-down villa in Sicily. now, Strictly Come Dancing stars Anton du Beke and Giovanni Pernice are on the same island for Anton & Giovanni’s Adventures in Sicily (BBC1).

That word ‘adventures’ might be of interest to the trading standards people. This was like watching an unashamedly embarrassing dad on holiday with a much-loved son whom he lost in a custody battle. They squabbled and bickered and bantered, and I didn’t believe a word of it.

We viewers have a pact with television. We know scenes are faked on programmes like this, and we mostly just sit back and enjoy the fun. But did anybody really believe that Anton deliberately flounced off right at the start, leaving Giovanni — who was born on the island — to struggle with the baggage alone?

They then squabbled about who should drive, with lots of jokes about the ‘wrong’ side of the road. The younger man won, and then got the car stuck on a small verge in true Top Gear style.

I’m not even sure now that Anton really dropped his Panama hat into the sea, which meant Giovanni had to dangle him over the side of the boat by the legs to fish it out.

Let’s give the entertaining tuk-tuk taxi race through Sciacca the benefit of the doubt. Also, the genuinely amusing moment on a car journey when Anton tried to explain the meaning of the phrase ‘budgie smugglers’ without getting too anatomical. he didn’t entirely succeed. But then they danced, and all was forgiven.

We knew they could dance a bit, of course, but it lifted the show. They took to the floor at a tango festival in Catania, where Giovanni lived and danced as a teenager, and it was bewitching.

So the moral of this series is: stick to what you know. If you’re planning a television road trip, you’re never going to be as entertaining as the chaps from Grand Tour. Mind you, I don’t suppose Jeremy Clarkson is much cop at the foxtrot.

Actors Adrian Dunbar and neil Morrissey, good friends for 42 years since their days at drama school, were also on a road trip. They were discovering their ancestors in DNA Journey (ITV1), which is basically Who Do You Think You Are? in pairs.

There were the usual revelations from shows like this. One of Adrian’s Victorian ancestors was a butcher who went on to run an illegal gambling joint at his home in Great Yarmouth, which was raided by the police.

In the Irish village of Castlecomer, Morrissey discovered he was descended from the hellraising Lachlan family, who carried on a long-standing feud with their neighbours, the Brennans. But great- great- aunt Bridey Lachlan married a Brennan. They had a son, also Joseph, who became a priest.

Perhaps more interesting for the rest of us was Morrissey’s claim that he suggested his friend for the part of Chief Superintendent Ted hastings in the hit BBC police corruption drama Line Of Duty. Also, the revelation that Dunbar has a dubious line in dad jokes. ‘We were a very musical family,’ he said. ‘even the sewing machine was a Singer.’

I fear the Comedy Store won’t be making availability checks any time soon.