The Cruise, TV review: The newly wed, the overfed, and the nearly dead

ITV's fly-on-the-deck documentary about life onboard the Regal Princess was all a bit dull, says Sean O'Grady

Hoofer on board: Dulcie, 22, is one of the dancers on the ‘Regal Princess’ (ITV)

Maybe the makers of new ITV series The Cruise have led more sheltered lives than I, but I must say that every time I heard a reference to "cruising" by the participants, my mind did wander to a less wholesome meaning of the term. The latter, as some former politicians have found, can be a thrilling experience, though invariably a career-limiting one. I wonder whether it is in fact possible to go cruising (unwholesomely) whilst (wholesomely) cruising on a liner?

Anyway, over in the Baltic on the tautologically named Regal Princess there seems no such risk of misadventure. As one of the cruisers remarked, spending time on what amounts to a gigantic floating hotel is usually thought of as something for "the newlywed, the overfed and the nearly dead", and most of the passengers on this fly-on-the deck documentary easily fell into one or other of those categories (sometimes, notably among those who found love late in life, qualifying for all three classifications).

The crew are usually much younger. Dulcie, a 22-year-old dancer, for example, is found struggling to reach "West End" standards in the production of Ferrera, performed in the ship's very own 800-seat theatre. I must say, though, that given the captive nature of the audience and, let us say, usually undemanding outlook, you wonder whether the bar has been set unnecessarily high for Dulcie and the other hoofers. Still, she's new to it and still keen. The youngish and very camp Timothy, a Buddy Holly lookalike, certainly seems to be losing his appetite for cruising, and he is an obvious minor celeb waiting to happen in the mould of Louie Spence from Pineapple Dance Studios. Well, I hope so anyway, for his sake.

I suppose the truth is that the people on the cruise, both cruisers and crew, were very nice and everything but, well, a bit dull. My attention, and imagination, was captured much more by the facts and figures on Regal Princess tossed casually in the voiceover: longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall; 19 decks high; 1,800 cabins; 4,000 passengers; 16 restaurants – all that stuff.

These are less floating hotels than seagoing small towns, and I'd much rather have been taken down to the engine room than have to watch a lot of holidaymakers doing, basically, sod all for a few months. I mean if I want that I can just watch Aston Villa on Sky Sports.

Boom boom.

I have to admit that I have dodged all of the previous 23 – yes, 23 – instalments of Holiday of My Lifetime with Len Goodman. But, in an example of sacrifice that will be familiar to television reviewers the world over, I subjected myself to the saccharine ordeal of a whole hour of Len reminiscing with guest celeb Fiona Phillips about, funnily enough, water-bound holidays, in her case on a little boat on the Norfolk Broads. Need I say more? I think I ought. It is really the broadcast equivalent of having to endure someone else's holiday snaps. It is difficult to say why this is such a peculiarly tedious experience, but even the perky and pleasant personality of ITV Breakfast telly favourite Fiona couldn't make waves with this sort of material.