Strictly's Len Goodman has an unlikely link to the Titanic, writes Sam Wollaston
There's an awful lot of Titanic around in the next couple of weeks. Well, it was a big ship, a bigger disaster, and this is a big anniversary. Weirdest of all offerings, surely, is this one: Titanic with Len Goodman (BBC1). What is this, Strictly Come Drowning? Ah, but there's something I didn't know about the Strictly judge: he used to be a welder at shipbuilders Harland and Wolff. Not actually in Belfast where Titanic was built, but at the docks in London. That's good enough for me: take it away, Len.
In any case it's a lovely programme; programmes, in fact, because there are two more to come. He goes to Belfast, stands on the slipway, and in the dry dock, a vast void that echoes to the cries of 1,514 lost souls and, perhaps louder still, the eight workers who were killed here during construction, before the ship even reached the water. That's what Len's doing here – focusing on some of the lesser-known stories. They're human stories, like what Titanic meant to the people of Belfast and Southampton, and how utterly crap the White Star line was at looking after the employees who survived. Of course, he takes a special interest in his own two professional areas of expertise: the entertainment on board, the band that famously kept playing, and also the construction of the ship, essentially how bits of metal were joined together. Riveting.
The first series of Twenty Twelve (BBC2), which went out on BBC4 last year, was underwhelming; "nibbling satire", I think I said – rather brilliantly, if I may say so – rather than biting satire. The fact that real Olympic overlord Seb Coe was happy to take part is not a good sign (and he appears here again). I doubt he'd agree to be in The Thick of It. Its transfer to BBC2 hasn't changed things much: it hasn't become more off-message or less gentle. But Jessica Hynes, who plays the hopeless head of brands, is still fabulous. And the final scene, a disastrous video conference with the Algerian representative, is wonderful. Literally LOL.