Climbing over the futtocks.

ANYONE hoping for this new six-part series to be The Frontier House at sea will be sorely disappointed.

Director Chris Terrill didn't want to make one of those living history docu-soaps in which modern day folk have to live in exactly the same conditions as people from a particular period in the past.

What he offers is "an 18th century voyage with a 21st century twist". The 41 volunteers who join the 15 working crew aboard the replica of Captain Cook's HM Bark Endeavour for the six-week voyage from Australia to Indonesia suffer some of the deprivations that the original seamen did, notably a salt beef and concrete-hard ship's biscuits diet.

But when they climb the rigging, they're attached to safety harnesses. If Cook's men fell, they usually drowned as almost no 18th century sailor could swim. The biggest danger this time seems to be sleepless nights from the snoring of fellow crew members, sleeping in hammocks 14 inches apart.

Toilet arrangements are different too. The original Endeavour had seats of ease - bits of wood with holes in them - hanging over the side. These modern sailors have proper loos, although the captain warns that if they don't close the valve whatever went down the toilet last will flood the decks.

Unlike the 21st century voyage, Cook didn't have any women aboard. His crew did include some Americans, long before TV programmes with US funding needed to contain an element from that side of the Atlantic.

Terrill cuts back and forth between the new voyage and reconstructions of key moments in Cook's tour, giving it the air of one of those history programmes littering the C5 schedules.

I'd rather have more of the modern adventure, but at least I learnt about futtocks. I'd always imagined this was a rude word, influenced perhaps by an old Ronnie Barker silent comedy called Futtock's End.

But you go over the futtocks up to the yard arm. Well, I wouldn't, because the mast is 130ft above deck and I'm no great lover of heights, or standing on a length of rope with nothing between me and the deck but fresh air.

As one crew member puts it: "It was a bit dodgy climbing over the futtocks, but I've had that trouble for years now."

Now "the bird that wouldn't go away" is perched on the side of the ship. Not a good omen, someone suggests. Nor are the mutterings of mutiny among the crew after being told they must "rough it, tough it, it's not a holiday on daddy's yacht" following a row over washing clothes.

Historian Iain moans to the camera: "I'm speaking out because others don't dare to. They can do what they like to me, I don't care."

As much as he tries, Terrill may not be able to stop The Ship becoming an historical soap after all.