Six years ago, Karl Pilkington was just a bald radio producer working at XFM. These days, having been introduced to the world through Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, he is now a phenomenon.

An Idiot Abroad 2 puts Karl in a series of uncomfortable situations bound to make his blood boil and his mouth babble for the purposes of entertainment.

The show is a natural successor to the first series, with the first episode already bigger, bolder, meaner and madder. Karl is found bungee jumping and when he’s not moaning about how pointless it all is, he’s screaming at Gervais and Merchant who sit gleefully like children still enjoying their new puppy. The show’s reversed cultural imperialism provides incredible entertainment value whilst playing host to a whole range of interesting locales.

But just as with Gervais and Merchant’s previous projects, you suspect a second series will be the last (give or take an award-winning Christmas special).

The reason Karl Pilkington works and why An Idiot Abroad and The Ricky Gervais Show are such roaring successes is that Karl is just a bald radio producer from Manchester - the more he is exposed and used as Gervais and Merchant’s perfect fool, the more us casual cynics begin to suspect that Karl knows what he’s doing, and can begin to suggest that he’s slowly changing from a slow, observing clown to a man with a full jokebook and a fuller bank.

He’s getting wise to it: we should kill him now and keep him as a comic martyr. The best die young, the daft should die younger. Currently however, he is still fantastically enjoyable and An Idiot Abroad 2 is very good television, entertaining and tentatively educational.