This documentary is a meat-and-two-veg slice of British television, comfortable and familiar and sturdy. It’s the sort of TV that doesn’t ask much of you, only that you raise an eyebrow, nod along, and say yes, that is an interesting fact about bananas, I’d never thought about that before. The statistics are plentiful and free-flowing, so much so that without them being breathlessly relayed every few seconds, you suspect it could have been a 20-minute show. Even so: 3m bananas! Which must be stored at exactly 14C (57F), so they don’t ripen too soon!
Dover is the UK’s biggest ferry port. According to the film-makers, 10 million passengers pass through it every year, as does a third of Britain’s trade with the EU. During the summer, upwards of 10,000 freight vehicles and 15,000 passenger vehicles make use of it daily. It’s a busy place, with multiple purposes, and many different teams, attempting to form a gigantic sort of interlocking puzzle.
The show borrows from various sections of the jobs-based reality-documentary toolbox. As a result, it feels like a bit of a hybrid of many other programmes. It’s Border Force meets Traffic Cops meets Inside the Factory, with a tiny splash of late-90s series Airline, though sadly it is nowhere near as camp as that minor classic. It begins with the Border Force element. The Port of Dover has its own police force, of “nearly 40” officers, in charge of the safety and security of passengers. We see two of them patrolling the white cliffs, to check, excitingly, whether anyone is carrying out “hostile reconnaissance”. They might be a famous tourist attraction and a renowned beauty spot, but the cliffs also offer a view of the entire port, perfect for bad actors to do some spying. It does make you wonder if making television viewers aware of this is in the best interests of national security. But there are no spies today, merely some evidence of alcohol consumption.
They stop a man driving to Europe from Birmingham, because he’s got eight people in the car, three of whom are children not wearing seatbelts, and when they check his documents, that turns out to be the least of his worries. Then the radios crackle with a message that a freight driver is claiming to have a gun and is “irate”, and everyone runs. It looks like the camera crew has struck gold. This is properly exciting. But it turns out to be a misunderstanding involving flashcards, and the driver gets escorted away for the day, with a slap on the wrist.
Minor dramas bubble up to the surface, then pop, and dissipate gently. On a national security level, it’s reassuring that there is so little threat here, even though it does make for steady television. Michelle, the duty operations officer, has got a busy day ahead: she needs to figure out how to get a convoy of six coaches on board the ferry to Dunkirk, without blocking the lanes. She manages to pull it off without a hitch.
We get to meet the ferry’s head chef, Paolo, who caters to the coach passengers, and has a run on fish and chips. I am no logistics mastermind, but if you asked me what six coach-loads of passengers of a certain age, travelling to Dunkirk, might want to eat, fish and chips wouldn’t be an outside bet. I am also surprised to learn that ferries have head chefs, after recently travelling on a ferry myself – not this company, I should add – and eating what can only be described as the most beige meal that has ever been plated up, and paying £25 for the privilege.
We learn that to compensate the residents of Dover for the fact that 3.8m vehicles pass through the town every year, and traffic can occasionally get a bit much, the Port of Dover throws an annual regatta for locals, to give back to the community. Unfortunately, on the day, it is very windy, but it goes quite well. That’s all there is to it.
Running a busy port sounds like a difficult task, but everyone here seems pretty competent, and on the basis of this documentary, it all looks as if it’s going well. Again, reassuring, in terms of that safe pair of hands, if not the most lively television you’ll ever see. Apart from the bananas, that is. They arrive on a boat so big that it needs tiny boats to help it dock. It requires remote-controlled cranes to offload the endless crates of bananas. One of the cranes gets stuck. The weather starts to turn. The cargo ship must leave quickly, before the tide goes out. The music is dramatic, the stakes are high. I’ll leave you to guess how it all turns out.
Dover 24/7: Britain’s Busiest Port is on Channel 4.