Dara and Ed’s Big Adventure (BBC2, 9pm)

MAYBE this is the way forward post-Top Gear: Stick two stand-ups in a car and let them try to be funny about a road trip. Ed Byrne is already a veteran having having joined Andy Parsons to brave temperatures as low as -50 to drive across Siberia's infamous Road of Bones in BBC2's

World's Most Dangerous Roads. Dara O Briain (who plays Middlesbrough Town Hall on April 14-15, Newcastle City Hall on April 16, 17 and 18, plus York Barbican on November 5 to 7) is more used to being Three Men In A Boat on TV with Rory McGrath and Griff Rhys Jones.

But pairing the two Irish funnymen on a mammoth pan-American adventure, retracing a journey originally undertaken during the 1940s by three men from Detroit, might just help those of us having withdrawal symptoms over comedy capers in cars. Luckily, these two are old friends having each been the other's best man at their respective weddings.

They begin in Arizona before heading over the border into Mexico, where they see lucha libre wrestlers, visit a state-of-the-art coffee farm, and explore the remains of the ancient Zapotec civilisation of Monte Alban. They also witness the stream of migrants risking their lives to reach the US as they ride a freight train know as La Bestia.

"We're both immigrants," says O Briain. "We both travelled from the country and we were born into another country."

"It is a similar relationship between Central America and the USA as there is between Ireland and Britain," adds Byrne. "We are the smaller neighbour that kind of gets forgotten about," he laughs.

One of their first stops is to meet Ed Richardson, whose dad, Sullivan, led the 1940s expedition they are repeating. With the aid of a scrapbook his father put together, the travellers get a better insight into the epic travels undertaken seven decades ago. Before a road linked the continents, Sullivan Richardson, Arnold Whitaker and Kenneth Van Hee were dubbed the "three damn fools" by the US press as they set out to travel from North to South America in their Plymouth saloon car. That trip became a book, Adventure South, which formed the inspiration for the current journey.

The Chrysler Corporation gave Sullivan a Plymouth Sedan car for his trek, enamoured by the idea of bringing together the Americas.

"It took the 'fools' five months to reach the Panama Canal, but we've only got four weeks," explains O Briain. "We'll be travelling over 4,000 miles, first down the length of Mexico and then south through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, before we end our journey in Panama."

From Burger Bar to Gourmet Star (Channel 4, 8pm)

FAST food cooks with no formal training are fast-tracked through a process that normally takes years to cook alongside some of the country's most refined chefs. At the end of the process, they must pose as seasoned professionals, cooking in world-class kitchens.

In the first episode, burger-van owner Carl, who has a business on a lay-by off the A38, heads for the kitchen of perfectionist chef Daniel Clifford, at his two Michelin star restaurant Midsummer House. Carl is put through his paces during 18-hour days, and with intense pressure and time away from his family, he must pass himself off as one of Daniel's best chefs at the renowned Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy.

Ordinary Lies (BBC1, 9pm)

FORMER Coronation Street actress Michelle Keegan pops up as the star of tonight's Ordinary Lies, as party-loving receptionist Tracy. She's desperate to escape the mundane routine of her life, and it seems her prayers have been answered when she starts dating local DJ Jimmy, who offers to whisk her and workmate Viv away on an all-expenses paid trip to the Caribbean. However, when the girls jump at the chance, it soon becomes clear there is more to the holiday than meets the eye. Jo Joyner and Cherrelle Skeet co-star.