On TV

Faking It (C4)

MY first thought was that ITV had missed the boat with another programme about Titanic. With several feature films and many documentaries about the ship's tragic maiden voyage, could they find anything new to say about the unsinkable luxury liner?

But Titanic: Birth Of A Legend did offer a fresh angle by telling the "untold story of the men who built her".

Some of them went down with her too. They were the "guarantee group" of shipyard workers - troubleshooters who sailed on the first voyage to keep an eye on things. All eight perished when Titanic hit that iceberg and sank. A ship that took five years to build went to the bottom of the sea in just two hours 40 minutes.

This dramatised reconstruction, using a mix of actors and computer-generated images of Titantic herself, was based on actual events leading to the maiden voyage of the vessel declared "practically unsinkable" by its builders.

It was, we were told at the start, a story of violence and high political drama, despair and tragedy, and of shame. No sign of that soppy romantic stuff in which Leo and Kate indulged in the movie.

Instead, we witnesses the rivalry between shipping companies White Star and Cunard to see who could build the biggest, most lavish and fastest liners.

Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where Titanic and her sister ship Olympus were built, became a hotbed of political unrest as the issue of home rule divided the country. There was division between the trades, too, with some being considered less worthy than others.

The 1,400 workers in the yard did a six day week for as little as £1 take-home pay. Each worker was allowed just seven minutes a day in the lavatories.

The difference between the poor shipyard workers and the Titanic's posh passengers was all too evident. A worker was lucky to have an outside lavatory, a tin bath and just about enough food on the table to feed his family. The most discerning first class travellers had a choice of 39 suites with bedroom, bathroom, private sitting and dining rooms.

The company's desire for profit meant that only the legal requirement for lifeboats was provided, despite the fact that the size of Titanic meant many more were needed. The chief designer walked off the project when management refused to increase the number of lifeboats.

If they'd listened to him, things might have been better on the night the ship hit the iceberg.

Faking It tried to turn shy, timid Kate Harding, a self-confessed geek whose hobbies include dressing up for 18th century historical re-enactments, into a cool and confident director of pop videos.

This looked like a hopeless task until the very last minute. No amount of coaching, making over and morale-boosting could give Kate the confidence, clarity and conviction she needed to boss around a 50-strong film crew making the new Liberty X video. She couldn't even bring herself to shout "Action" and "Cut" on the set.

Amazingly, she fooled two of the three-strong panel. Only Top Of The Pops presenter Fearne Cotton spotted her as the intruder - not so much for her manner as for her brand-new trainers. They led her to suspect that Kate had been styled and was, therefore, the fake. Clever girl, Fearne.