THE CRUISE

HIGH SEAS DRAMA

Today she’s a Bafta-winning, chart-topping star, but this is where it all began for Jane Mcdonald. A 12-part observational documentary series following a group of staff aboard the luxury cruise ship Galaxy, it introduced us to a nervous and lonely Jane in her cabin minutes before a make-or-break appearance on the ship’s vast stage. All 12 episodes of the 1998 series and the five-episode followup Return To The Cruise are available, but it’s the very first programme, Let The Dream Begin, that’s the most intimate and revelatory. ‘I’d love to make it rich and famous so I can get my miner brother out of the pit,’ says Jane. ‘He works 12-hour shifts down a hole, which

I find unnerving.’