The Tube On The Tube: Channel 5 Documentary Airs Tonight

By Londonist Staff Last edited 96 months ago
The Tube On The Tube: Channel 5 Documentary Airs Tonight

The daily commute is a great time to get really close to your fellow Londoners as proved in claustrophobic new documentary The Tube: Going Underground, which starts on Channel 5 tonight.

This eight-part series goes behind the scenes to show how a hardened army of 20,000 staff cope with 5 million passengers per day, the majority of whom like to travel together during the morning and afternoon rush hours so they can play a super friendly game of human Jenga.

Filmed over one year during work on a £10bn modernisation programme, the series makes you appreciate how hard running the world’s oldest underground transport system really is: what with Friday night drunks, football fans converging for a London derby, strike action and an epidemic of flat wheels and other technical troubles.

There's also analysis of less familiar aspects such as the controversial experiment in Holborn to abandon the ‘walk on the left’ convention.

It all makes you appreciate just how close to crisis the system nearly always is and how miraculous getting across town from home to work in time for the Monday morning meeting can be.

The Tube: Going Underground is on Channel 5 on 21 March at 9pm.

Last Updated 21 March 2016