David Dimbleby steers his 28-foot wooden yacht Rocket around England, Scotland and Wales for four hour-long films that treat the coastline as archive rather than backdrop. Starting in Cornwall and ending in Greenwich, each episode pairs a stretch of water with a theme: invasion, trade, pleasure. Between tacks he drops in on Portsmouth’s dockyards, Turner’s marine canvases, a Highland whisky port and the Lowestoft fishing sheds that once employed 10,000 people, letting local curators, artists and sailors talk as much as the presenter.
The stunt that dominated coverage came when the 75-year-old had a scorpion tattooed on his shoulder in a Falmouth parlour, supposedly re-enacting how 18th-century sailors carried inked souvenirs. Newspapers called it a ratings ploy; viewers mostly remembered the wince rather than the history. Overnight figures show 2.7 million watched the first episode, a 10% share for the slot, but reviews were split. Neil Midgley in The Daily Telegraph complained the remit was so diffuse the programme “lost its grip”; The Times enjoyed the “Enid Blytonish tone” and the way the veteran broadcaster let younger crew members handle the ropes.
Made with the National Maritime Museum, the series was commissioned in 2012 as a flagship BBC One documentary, shot on location by directors John Hodgson, Rosie Schellenberg and Graham Cooper. The score by Chris Nicolaides mixes sea-shanty strings with electronic washes, while Mike Garner’s camera lingers on salt-stained charts and gull-flecked skies. Four episodes were broadcast between 17 November and 8 December 2013; no second voyage was ordered.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2013
Created by: David Dimbleby
Writer(s): David Dimbleby
Producer(s): Alexander Leith
Main Cast
David Dimbleby as Himself - Presenter
