And they got the tone just right, handling the whole affair in their usual ladsy manner, with plenty of off-centre jokes and jibes about Hammond's driving. Presumably, the only reason they didn't go the whole hog and get him in a headlock and rub knuckles on his scalp was because Hammond had suffered a serious brain injury. But then, that was covered by asking him: "Are you now a mental?"

It's all terrifically watchable of course, the boorish Clarkson made bearable by the fact that he can be genuinely funny. Still, his sideswipe at "racist pig-face" Jade Goody was a bit rich. If we've really reached a point where Jeremy Clarkson can take the moral high ground, then somebody better check the horizon for four horsemen. This is a man who hates French people because of their innate Frenchness and who once suggested that BMW should build a quintessentially German car with "a sat-nav that only goes to Poland" and which has Hitler salutes instead of indicators.

Salutes of a strictly non-Nazi variety are due to the Planet Korda production team for the latest in the Hidden History series, Hitler's Irish Movies. During the second World War, Joseph Goebbels commissioned and produced a series of films designed to show the German people that the Nazi cause was a just one, and that the British were deceitful bullies and callous oppressors. Happily, Ireland's struggle for independence was perfectly suited to this cause, so some films made were about the brave Irish fighting against their cruel British occupiers. Except these Irish people spoke German.

It's a terrific and quite rare feeling to watch a documentary and get the impression that no stone has been left unturned, that the facts are being presented to you for consideration, rather than rammed down your throat with a didactic moral (although that would probably have been an odd route to take for a programme concerned with the dangers of propaganda). The archive footage was jaw-dropping, the voiceover was unintrusive and the talking heads were informed and eloquent. And it was funny. Now, amusing documentaries about Nazis are thin on the ground, but clips of the various propaganda films were frequently hilarious. In one of the films, there's a céilí that eschews the convention of leaping red-haired lasses for what appears to be an all-male troop of particularly stiff zombies in Aran sweaters. Elsewhere, a gallant German soldier comes to a distraught woman's aid: "You have nothing to worry about Madam, we'll bring you to a concentration camp." Great, we'll be safe there.

There was also a wonderfully affecting decision to track down some extras who played Irish schoolboys in Mein Leben für Irland (My Life for Ireland, 1941).

These now elderly German men were shown the film, excitedly pointing each other out when they appeared on screen, going quiet when a book-burning scene appeared, and discussing the effect of the propaganda on them.

One hesitatingly confirms that he would have died for the Fatherland, but when he looks to his companion for validation, his schoolboy friend is staring silently at the ground.

Anybody who doubts how hard these seamless shifts in tone are to achieve should be made sit through Trouble in Paradise, RT�?'s latest attempt at drama. At no point in the duration of the programme were you sure whether what you were watching was supposed to be suspenseful, moving or funny. One scene that cropped up seemed so out of place, I had to check that someone hadn't snuck in and changed channels.

The whole thing couldn't have been any clunkier if someone had appeared to hold signs over characters' heads saying things like "the heroine, " or "troubled soul with a secret, " or "no need to remember this guy's name, he's here purely for exposition". It was so amateurish, I half expected someone to wave to their mum.

But even the prospect of that actually happening wouldn't be enough to make me tune in next week.

Reviewed

Top Gear Sunday, BBC2 Hidden History: Hitler's Irish Movies Tuesday, RT�?1 Trouble in Paradise Monday, RT�?2