Behind the scenes of ITV documentary The Cruise

It’s one of my more surreal moments on a cruise ship, I’ll admit. Ducking behind piles of bed sheets dotted around the laundry to hide from a camera crew. This is so I don’t mess up the camera shot while the crew is hot on the heels of hotel general manager Richard Harry, as he carries out an inspection of the area.

I’ve come onboard Royal Princess during the early stages of filming for the second series of ITV documentary The Cruise. A six-team crew from documentary makers Wild Pictures is spending six weeks onboard in three two-week chunks. Nicola Bathurst, series producer, estimates that the two cameramen are filming for about eight hours a day. That’s about 336 hours of footage, which will need to be condensed to six half-hour episodes by Christmas, ready for airing in the new year.

Although Wild Pictures was responsible for the first series of The Cruise filmed onboard Regal Princess, which aired earlier this year, it’s a fresh team on the job. They spent a week onboard the ship before they began filming in order to scout out new characters. Given that two break-out stars from series one, chief engineer Scott Grayson and customer service agent Timothy Gallant from Regal have both recently transferred on to Royal Princess, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that they will reappear. Still, Bathurst assures me that new stars will emerge. “It’s good for the audience to see familiar faces and continuity,” she says. “But we’re also on a whole new vessel with a new cast of characters. We’re already off the blocks filming with some key characters in the galley, on the bridge and in the medical centre. We didn’t have much access to those in series one.”

Chasing the action

Stories and characters are plentiful on a ship the size of Royal Princess, with its 1,400 crew and 3,560 passengers. The hardest part is being in the right place at the right time, admits Bathurst. “Things happen every day that are unexpected, and we have to mobilise quickly enough to tell these stories. We could easily run along with a camera five minutes later to find it’s all over.”

And the ship’s crew won’t wait for them: “We haven’t got time to stage anything, and we’re not going to reenact for the cameras – they have to be there,” confirms Richard Harry. “To their credit, they make it easy for us.”

Turnaround of staff is another challenge, given the rolling nature of shipboard contracts. “We can’t drop the ball on key characters,” says Bathurst. “We need to plan exit strategies so stories don’t fizzle out when they leave the ship.”

The critical factor in any documentary is good relationships with contributors, she tells me, and Wild Pictures appears to be making it work with Princess Cruises. “We’ve been made to feel so welcome onboard and everyone has tried hard to make our time as easy as possible,” she says. “We understand each other and we want to make the same engaging, funny, watchable, warm TV series.”

As the camera follows Richard Harry around the pool deck, the reaction from the sunbathing passengers ranges from mild curiosity to total indifference. They’ve been warned, via daily shipboard newspaper The Princess Patter, that the film crew is at work. They are invited to opt out if they don’t want to be on camera, but Richard Harry isn’t aware of any negative feedback: “We’ve had no one throw their hands up in horror. They seem content to be in the background and be able to say ‘I was there’ when it airs on TV.”

Making the cut

The documentary crew is looking for natural exhibitionists. They seem delighted with Timothy’s spontaneous dance of joy when reunited with his “bestie” Emma on embarkation. But everyone has a chance of making the cut, insists Bathurst. “Just because you’re shy, we’re not going to say you’re not worth filming if you’re part of an interesting story.”

They’ll persevere with staff who are undecided about appearing on camera, but if they firmly decline to participate, she says they won’t try and persuade them.

Just a few subjects are off limits, such as safety procedures for security reasons, and any filming that could endanger lives on the ship, but they aim to reveal even more about life at sea this series, and that includes sending a camera down into a black water tank where toilet water is treated before being discharged in the open sea.

Their knack is finding the characters that audiences will identify with. Little did Scott know that when they asked to film him unpacking for series one, his initial moments on camera would pave the way for him to become a major character.

“That for me was the most nerve-wracking moment of all – being landed in it. I thought, what if something risque pops out [of the suitcase] here, but it was just boxers and beef jerky.”

He insists he’s just being himself on camera, doing a job he loves.

And when the pressure is on, he can easily ignore the lens. “When things are breaking and I have to fix it, I blindside the camera. And sometimes they know to hang back and get the long shots in.”

With The Cruise intent on switching the British public on to life at sea, I’m left wondering whether it has converted Bathurst, herself a first-time cruiser. “I’ve been encouraged by the number of families onboard,” she says, “and it’s nice to wake up somewhere different everyday, where a new adventure awaits.”

And the perks of a more exotic filming location have clearly made an impression: “Eating pizza in Naples was a highlight; normally we’re eating Ginsters pasties at motorway service stations.”