"The Tube". New BBC documentary series

[bignosemac]

Starting tonight (Monday 20th February 2012) on BBC2 9pm is a new documentary series taking viewers behind the scenes of the world's busiest underground train network.

Edited extract from the BBC Media Centre press release:

The 6x60 series, The Tube, takes viewers behind the scenes of the world’s oldest, biggest and busiest underground train network. Made by Blast! Films, the series will tell the inside story of one of the most critical moments in the tube’s history as the underground network undergoes the biggest upgrade of any railway system ever planned in the world.

Running a system built and designed in 1863 for the demands of the 21st Century is an extraordinary feat. The upgrade will be done under immense pressure to keep lines open and minimise the length of station closures.

Cameras will go to the places viewers have always wanted to see – behind the hoardings to reveal the massive new engineering works, inside the command centre to see what running this most complex of train sets is really like and illuminating a hidden underground world that only comes to life at night.

The series will meet the people who run and use the tube, from obsessive MD Mike Brown down to the litter collector who walks miles every night collecting rubbish off the track. And then of course there are the passengers – the tourists, the suburban commuters, the drunkards getting the last train home, the school outings, the buskers and the down and outs.

The series was commissioned by Charlotte Moore, Commissioning Editor, Documentaries and Janice Hadlow, Controller, BBC TWO. The Tube will be Executive Produced for Blast! Films by Ed Coulthard.

BBC iPlayer link to the first episode (available shortly after broadcast): http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cl522/The_Tube_Weekend/

[Lee]

A review can be found here.

[bignosemac]

Great review it is as well, Lee. 

I'll just quote the opening paragraph which, in words, paints a great picture (where's William Hogarth with his engraving kit when you need him?!) of what hard pressed Underground staff have to deal with on a typical Friday night:

The latest contributor to reality television's ongoing mission to catalogue every last public puddle of vomit, splash of urine and semi-comatose body slumped bonelessly in the gutter joined the feculent fray last night. The opening episode of The Tube (BBC2) painted a picture – mostly in the aforementioned bodily fluids – of the average Friday night on the subterranean network. Hogarth himself would run screaming from the sight, but the station managers, cleaners and assorted other underground sufferers of the British commitment to binge-drinking soldier – wryly, stoically, incredulously as the mood and temperament take them – on. "Womit after womit," says one of the cleaners, a former professional cyclist who once, she told us, came second in the Soviet Union in the 25km race. "Nobody apologise. Never, never, never."

Folks, do read the full review. My kind of journalism. Well written Lucy Mangan. 

[bignosemac]

Just caught the final episode of this excellent series. If you've not caught it then the entire series of 6 episodes will be available via BBC iPlayer until 2259 Monday 2nd April.

Now, what I'd like to see is a similar fly-on-the-wall documentary at a Train Operating Company. I won't hold my breath for such a programme though.