‘Downright adorable’: why Alan Carr and Amanda Holden are TV’s most lovable duo

It might have aired on 5 January but it was instantly hailed as a contender for TV moment of the year. Egged on by his pal Amanda Holden, the reluctant Alan Carr braved a huge slide at a water park in Corfu called the Black Hole. “It’s pitch black,” warned Holden. “You won’t see a thing.” “Sounds awful,” said the nervous comedian, asking the lifeguard to “Pray for me.”

He proceeded to fall out of his rubber ring and scream all the way down a long, dark tunnel before hurtling head first into the pool. Holden just about recovered from her hysterical mirth to wrap the traumatised Carr in a towel, noting that he looked like “ET on the bike”. Welcome to Amanda & Alan’s Greek Job – the most feelgood guilty pleasure on air.

Pulling in 4 million viewers, this surprise hit is a mashup of celebrity travelogue and renovation show. You might well think there is already enough of both genres clogging up the schedules. You would be correct – but this total riot of a show proves an exception. The pitch might sound suspiciously like daytime ITV trash, rather than primetime BBC fodder, but it’s elevated by the high-wattage charisma of its stars and their downright adorable friendship.

The ultimate hun and the chatty man have been close friends for 20 years and have chemistry to burn. They get stuck into the ouzo. They visit a spa together and get told off for laughing too much in the Jacuzzi. Holden shamelessly attempts to matchmake Carr with every eligible male they meet. In her quest to land him “a Greek god”, she signs Carr up for a gay dating app and has to guess some crucial measurements. “This is an eye-opener!” she gasps delightedly. “They’re very detailed on these apps.”

They wear matching Elvis-style white jumpsuits, for reasons never made entirely clear. Holden’s role is the glamourpuss with designer tastes and an exacting moodboard. Carr plays the hapless sidekick who doesn’t quite understand her vision but is happy to give it a go, provided he can roll his eyes to camera a lot.

Riding high after his triumphant stint in The Celebrity Traitors, Carr is one of the most infectiously funny presences on TV. He is professionally hilarious but the under-appreciated Holden is a hoot, too: a force of nature who is enjoyably sweary and self-deprecating with a scene-stealing filthy laugh.

The eight-parter isn’t just a source of interiors and holiday inspo. It’s a proper grower. You might begrudgingly catch an episode while waiting for something else to start on BBC One. Before you know it, you’re hooked. The sea, sun and lush landscapes are built in a lab for banishing the winter blues. With episodes clocking in at a snackable 28 minutes, it’s fiendishly watchable in a wallpaper way.

This is actually the A-team’s fourth Mediterranean DIY series together. The mini-franchise began with Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job, which saw them snap up two run-down apartments in rural Sicily for one euro apiece and spend the summer renovating them. A second season took them across to the mainland, where they spruced up a 17th-century house in Tuscany.

Like a lifestyle version of The Trip, the format has since been rolled out to different destinations. In Amanda and Alan’s Spanish Job they worked their chaotic magic on a crumbling casa in Andalucía. They returned there for a Christmas special, complete with lethal sherry trifle and skinny-dipping in Santa hats. Feliz Navidad indeed.

Now they’re on the idyllic Ionian island of Corfu for “a big fat Greek renovation”. In the hillside village of Kokkini (NB: plenty of innuendo potential), they tackle their most run-down property yet. When they first visit the derelict wreck, they’re horrified to find mushrooms growing on the ceiling and a human turd on the floor. Room by room, they set about transforming this money pit into a high-spec family holiday home.

Having bought it for £30,000, they end up putting it on the market for £585,000. Don’t worry. They’re not flipping houses to line their own jumpsuit pockets. All profits go to Comic Relief and Children in Need. The show has a pleasing side-effect of boosting tourism in the areas visited too.

After mucking in with the construction work during the day, they meet locals and explore Corfu’s culture by night. In one standout sequence, Alan is taught to cook traditional dishes by a Greek grandmother, or yiayia, who has absolutely no time for his nonsense. Inspired by the author and conservationist Gerald Durrell’s Corfu Trilogy, they volunteer at an animal sanctuary. As Alan bonds with rescue donkeys, Amanda feeds the street cats and ends up agreeing to take two of them home to the UK.

Amid the jolly jaunts and sunkissed japes, they share surprisingly intimate moments. Over Aperol spritz sundowners and a bowl of “Greek Quavers”, they have poignant heart-to-hearts about ageing, Alan’s divorce and Amanda’s stillborn son. They also rip the piss out of each other in the sort of amusingly brutal ways only proper best friends can. When Alan points out that Amanda’s breasts have mysteriously grown since the previous series, she laughs along gamely, pretending that she hasn’t been under the knife and it’s simply down to eating more saganaki cheese.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll wonder why you’re watching something your mum probably dismisses as too downmarket. Complete with Demis Roussos soundtrack, it’s like a midlife gap year with Shirley Valentine vibes – an immersive Mamma Mia! cinema experience without leaving your sofa.

Carr is set to capitalise on this success – and his Ardross-based Traitors win – with a stately home version. The upcoming Disney+ series Castle Man will document his search for his dream historic home as he approaches his 50th birthday. “Some men buy a Lamborghini or grow a ponytail when they have a midlife crisis,” he says. “Not me. All I want is a turret to call my own. Get me over that drawbridge!” In an unexpected career pivot, he is becoming a sort of camp Kevin McCloud. Or Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen with more rosé and fewer flouncy sleeves.

In the meantime, there’s Greek Job, which climaxes with a double bill on Friday. Holden finally gets the circular bath she has been wanging on about all series, while Alan flirts with a builder actually called Adonis. The pair throw a farewell party for local people and end up boozily dancing around their olive tree. Watching this shiny, happy show is like going on holiday with your two most outrageous mates. Come on in. The water’s warm and the laughter is loud.