Comedians Frank Skinner and Lee Mack meet at the Reform Club in London to kick off the first leg of the Around The World In 80 Days challenge which will see them travel across Europe.
In just eight days they need to be at the border between Turkey and Iraq to hand over the baton to Apprentice stars Nick Hewer and Saira Khan. This is the ultimate relay race, against the clock and all in aid of Children in Need.
In preparation for the challenge Frank wisely asks Michael Palin – the original voyager – for some advice. Advice he kindly hand writes in the opening pages of the Around The World In 80 Days journal, which the travellers will keep with them in their carpet bag.
London to Turkey sounds easy enough, but Frank and Lee can't even find their way out of the train station in Paris. With just 15 minutes to catch their connecting train Frank manages to find time to pose for a French caricaturist, and their first souvenir for the Children in Need auction is in the bag.
The duo whistle through Europe and spend their first night together on a train to Vienna.
To keep to schedule they have to catch a boat to Budapest and, onboard a turbo-charged monster, Frank and Lee hurtle down the Danube. With a brief wave at Bratislava they fall out in a heap in Budapest.
In 24 hours they have travelled a thousand miles, but they still have a way to go.
The next seven days are jam-packed with adventure for the pair. In Budapest Frank gets to indulge his passion for football, meeting the only surviving member of the 'Mighty Magyars', the Hungarian football team that inflicted the greatest ever defeat on England in 1954.
In Serbia the boys take to horseback and have an audience with the Serbian Royal family. Then on to Istanbul, where the sheer unrelenting pace of the journey appears to be taking its toll.
With just 48 hours left on the clock and a thousand miles still to go in order to make the handover, the boys are now in serious doubt that they'll do it.
Exhausted and fed up, are the funny men about to fall at the first Around The World hurdle?
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