Britain and the Sea

Production

BBC commissioning editor Mark Bell announced the television series on 14 June 2012. Filming locations included the Falmouth Aquarium in Falmouth. During the first episode, David Dimbleby, aged 75, received his first tattoo, a scorpion on his shoulder, while investigating how the UK was introduced to body art. Toby Young of The Daily Telegraph called it a publicity stunt, and Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian called the tattoo "a sign of things to come".

Reception

Overnight figures showed the first episode was watched by 10.1% of the viewing audience for that time, with 2.71 million viewers. Neil Midgley of The Daily Telegraph gave the first episode two stars out of five, stating that Dimbleby could not save a first episode that had no clear idea of what it wanted to achieve and had several very bad ideas about how to achieve it; he added that as Dimbleby sailed from port to port, he sprinkled in a few little educational films, whose remit was so diffuse that the programme lost its grip.

Sam Wollaston of The Guardian described it as "Five Go Down to the Sea, with a bit of history, culture, art (JM Turner, D Dimbleby etc, plus body art of course) thrown in. Rather nice." Matthew Baylis of the Daily Express commented that the first episode was drowned out by news of Dimbleby's tattoo, but noted there were more interesting things to see as the headmasterly Dimbleby circumnavigated the isles in his 28ft sailing boat Rocket. Andrew Billen of The Times said the contrast between the grizzled sea dog and his fresh-faced shipmates deepened the Enid Blytonish tone of their sail around Cornwall and Devon with shades of Captain Birdseye, calling it an inclusive and multidisciplinary tour deft enough to make Coast look ponderous.

Time Out gave the first two episodes two out of five stars and said the second episode lacked the number of surprises the first had.