Lost at Sea: My Dad's Last Journey 2020

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey Evaluation and Cuttings

Channel 4 on 16 September 2020 Media Campaign conducted by tpr media consultants +44 (0)20 8347 7020 | sophie@tpr-media.com www.tpr-media.com

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey Evaluation A young man’s personal journey to understand his father, Peter Bird, who in 1983 was the first person to row the Pacific Ocean single­handed.

About Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey Lost at Sea is an epic tale of the ocean, following one young man’s personal journey to understand his father, Peter Bird, one of Britain’s forgotten sporting heroes.

In 1983 Peter Bird became the first person to row the Pacific Ocean single­handed. Crossing 8000 treacherous miles in a 29­foot row­boat, with no support vessel, was an achievement comparable to Hillary and Tenzing’s ascent of Everest 30 years earlier. At the time, Peter Bird became an international celebrity and hero of the ocean­rowing community.

Over the next 15 years Peter continued to set new ocean­rowing records, such as the record for the longest time a person has ever spent alone at sea. Away for nearly a year at a time, Peter survived Force nine gales, week­long cyclones and ocean currents that meant he end up going in circles for weeks on end.

In 1991 Peter, and his partner Polly, had a son, Louis. Despite this, Peter continued to go away to sea. But on a 1996 crossing, he disappeared at sea. His empty boat, with film camera still attached, was recovered, but Peter was never found. Louis was just four years old at the time.

This film follows Louis’s attempt to piece together his father’s life, a father he hardly knew. It is a dramatic tale of obsession and extreme isolation, and an intimate exploration of a mother and son coming to terms with feelings of loss and abandonment, while trying to deal with a legacy of trauma that ran through their family for generations.

PR Overview We carried out a broad­ranging, high­visibility campaign targeting a range of outlets: from broadsheets to midmarket tabloids and tabloids, radio and TV. We explored a range of angles including mental health, father son relationships, and grief.

There were over 60 pieces of coverage, ranging from features, previews, reviews and trade press. The film was very well received, with many picks of the day and three four­star reviews in The Times, The Telegraph and i­news. This is unusual for a one­off documentary. We placed a broadsheet piece in the Times T2, alongside a tabloid piece in The Mirror. The Radio Times also ran a major feature. Louis appeared three radio shows: BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, Friday with Chiles on BBC Radio 5, and BBC World Service’s Newsday – all thoughtful and engaging interviews. Other key pieces of coverage include a Broadcast Now behind­the­ scenes piece by Johnny Burke and Ash Jenkins and an iNews feature. We had also planned for Louis and Polly to appear on Good Morning Britain but due to news agenda, this unfortunately fell through.

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Radio Saturday Live ­ 43:10: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000mhwf

Chiles on Friday ­ 2:37:30: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000mdk4

BBC World Service ­ 47:10: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x2wf7py7qrp

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Features

I went in search of my dad, lost at sea

Peter Bird died rowing the Pacific.

Why did his son return to the scene of his death, asks Helen Rumbelow

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hen Louis Bird got to the middle of the Pacific Ocean in his rowing boat he decided that this would be the place where he would jump in, knowing that the water went four dark miles beneath his feet to the sea bed.

Somewhere down there was where his father, Peter Bird, the record-breaking ocean rower, had died when Louis was just a little boy. Louis had been nervous of the water ever since.

It doesn’t make logical sense that Louis would grow up to be a man who would also undertake a treacherous ocean row across the Pacific, or that he would choose one of the deepest places to surrender himself to a swim in the water. But the story of Louis and Peter is something more like an ancient myth, of men questing and then struggling to return. Peter set off to find heroism. Louis went in after him, to find his father.

This is documented in the first film

by Louis, a 28-year-old TV producer, called Lost At Sea. It is a cross between Who Do You Think You Are? and The Odyssey. It could have been a straight hagiography of a pioneering adventurer: Peter was the first person to row nonstop across the Pacific in 1983, from America to Australia, and died after repeated attempts to

become the first person to complete the harder direction, from Russia to America. Instead it shows Louis exploring the audio and video diaries kept by his father, and so allows us to watch their voyages in parallel. As told

by Louis, the child who is so often neglected in the adventurer’s tale, Lost At Sea is a raw interrogation of masculinity. “I always thought of him as a hero,” Louis says, “but as I’ve grown up I’ve become more confused.”

To meet Louis, I travel to the Wiltshire countryside, where he has retreated to the village lived in by many of his extended family, far from his London TV career. Two miles down the road, in a barn, is the boat that was rescued, without its occupant, after Peter sent out the distress signal.

But as Polly, Louis’s mother and Peter’s partner at the time, says on camera: “Louis has the boat, but the boat is an empty thing.”

After our conversation, we both say we feel glad that we were able to meet in person, not over Zoom. Talking about his father feels precious; we must handle it carefully. It was, Louis says, important to him to show vulnerability in this film, as men do too rarely. It’s true: Lost at Sea begins with the almost unbearable emotional intensity of an audio tape that Peter, aged 49, made for his four-year-old son before he left for his final attempt on the Pacific in 1996.

“You will ask,” Peter says, addressing

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Louis in a quiet bedtime voice, “‘why are you going away, Daddy?’ ” It’s a question that hangs over this film, and a question that hangs over so many ambitious people, perhaps men especially, as they are pulled between two poles: on the one end providing for family and proving themselves, on the other their paternal love. Louis has had this tape ever since, kept it near him in every change of house, but had not felt strong enough to listen to it.

The moment he does forms the climax of the film. The title, Lost At Sea, I say, works on so many levels.

“It does,” Louis says. “He was in every sense. And I was completely lost out there at sea. I remember just rowing and sobbing. I was lost psychologically before and after.”

Peter’s father lived and worked at the Royal Mint, and suffered from depression. One day he left his children at home and threw himself into the Thames. The historical stigma attached to seeking help for mental health problems, particularly for men, was, Louis says, partly to blame.

“My father had to deal with, or actually not deal with, his father’s suicide, alone. There would be no support. It would have been, ‘Come on, mate, buck up, that’s life. It’s sad.

Move on.’ And that’s probably also why my grandfather killed himself.”

Peter left school with no qualifications, but was a likeable genius: quirky, witty, and even-keeled.

He was also unexpectedly determined to prove himself at sea, or as Louis puts it, “two generations of my family drawn to water, only for it to become their grave”. Louis thinks that he remembers his father leaving. “I was waving out the window, but I’m not sure if that’s a real memory or not.”

Louis’s childhood was dominated by the legacy of a heroic father. When I ask if he had a sense of his father growing up, Louis says: “No, not at all.”

In his teens he began to dip into the volumes of videos left behind, but it was overwhelming. “I knew that if I watched one of those tapes, that would rule me out for two weeks. It was too much.”

Suddenly, in 2016, in his midtwenties, Louis was seized with the idea of going on a Pacific row. “I decided it would fill the hole I was feeling.” When Louis reaches this point in the story I actually make a little involuntary gasp, for his poor mother. But at the outset, Louis, like Peter, felt a casual invincibility. Peter used to set off wearing jeans, “and not even loose ones, the Eighties tight ones — the salt rub, I cannot imagine”.

“I had youthful arrogance. It didn’t cross my mind that I couldn’t do it. My dad was Peter Bird.”

The first night of the row, the sun went down and Louis found himself in a field of sleeping humpback whales. Their spouts were shooting and their bulk was dwarfing his boat.

He began to feel the fear. The next morning, after rowing most of his waking hours, it was grey and cold and there was no land, just an alien landscape. Finally, he got a glimpse of what this meant for his mother, and for his father. The sea was “lonely, beautiful, final, unforgiving”.

Rowing hours on and off in shifts, short on sleep and food, “I hallucinated unbelievably strongly out there. At one point where I turned around I thought I saw him sitting behind me.” Louis dreamt of Peter talking as an old dad to his adult son, and cried on waking that it was not real. In a way, I say, you were visiting his grave? Yes, Louis says. He and his father were not comfortable sea swimmers: halfway through Louis braced himself to dive off the boat.

“That was the most liberating day of my life.”

But when he came back to London, Louis became depressed. “I went into it thinking it would give me every answer, every single answer. Instead I came home with more questions than ever.”

It was time to confront the archive, and Louis decided to make a film as a way to do it, to go “full throttle” towards the grief he had delayed as a child. These videos are preternaturally poignant. One shows Peter building his boat at home and little Louis

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trying to ride inside. “I don’t want you in here,� Peter says.

But mostly they show a man besotted with his son; the thought of his child makes him miserable with longing during his voyages (Peter made successive failed attempts on the Russia-to-America Pacific crossing during the Nineties). One video diary from the boat shows that Peter has been crying, and he confesses how hard the day has been because it was Louis’s birthday.

Does this experience change your views of fatherhood, I ask Louis. “My dad has convinced me of his love for me. I would love to be a father. But there’s no way I’m leaving for months at a time to go and piss about in boats on my own. Not a chance. No.�

During filming Louis speaks to some of Peter’s old rowing pals. They explain that fatherhood changed Peter’s motivations — setting records became more a calculated way to win the attendant prize money and so provide for his family. Peter believed that he was leaving Louis to benefit Louis. Peter also felt that, in his forties, it was too late for him to try anything else. The last remaining footage of Peter is a video diary of himself saying that “dark clouds are gathering�, and then the footage cuts off, ominously, like something out of a horror movie. “It’s very moving isn’t it? Almost unbelievable,� Louis says. The best guess about what happened to Peter was his boat was hit hard by a log carried with the force of a big wave.

At the end of two weeks of filming Louis sat in his San Francisco hotel room and listened to the tape made for him by his father before he went away that final time. Peter anticipates the question Louis will ask — “Why are you leaving me?� — perhaps because he is already guiltily asking it of himself.

On the tape Peter answers that question: “To be the first to do something is very precious to me.

I hope one day it will be precious to you too.�

On camera Louis hears these words and rips the headphones off. He

shouts angrily: “Who cares about records? Such a f***ing waste.� It is the moment when Louis realises that his father is human, as well as a hero. “It was such a dark place, I felt like I was breaking through. For me growing up, it was like a long hallway with the Nineties over this end and the present day is where I am. There was always a mist in between. And then sitting on that bed, listening to his voice, the first time I ever heard him talk to me as an adult, suddenly the mist dissipated.�

For the first time he understood that his father was flawed, and how “incredible my mother had been, and how difficult it would have been for her�. A new emotion came for his father, not awe or hero worship, but sympathy. “He was stuck, he started out looking for freedom and ended up trapped.�

This film is a great tribute to Peter Bird, and one of the greatest portraits of any adventurer, because it is honest about what he achieved, and honest about what it cost. What would Louis say to him if he could speak to him now? First, Louis says, he would give almost anything to have a drink and a chat with his dad. I think they have a lot in common, including the misplaced idea that rowing across a vast ocean provides peace. “I’m proud of him. I love him.

I felt like he was almost asking my forgiveness in that final tape to me.

I’d tell him there is no reason to forgive anything.�

I thought of Dad as a hero, but as I’ve grown up I have become more confused

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey is on Channel 4 on Wednesday at 10pm

From left: Peter Bird on Christmas Day during his Pacific crossing in 1982; Louis Bird with Peter’s boat, Sector

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SON’S PRIDE FOR SOLO PACIFIC ROW WER PETER BIRD

My dad.. .the loost hero EXCLUSIVE

BY MATT ROPER

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aking the cassette tape from the shelf in his bedroom where it had sat untouched for more than 20 years, Louis Bird slid it into an old Walkman and pressed play.

“Hello Louis, it’s Peter… Daddy. I thought I’d do this tape so you won’t forget me,” the voice began, and immediately Louis’ eyes welled up with tears.

Louis was just four when he last saw his dad, ocean rowing legend Peter Bird, who in 1996 set off to Russia to attempt to row solo across the Pacific non-stop.

Peter, 49, recorded the tape knowing it would be nearly a year before he saw his son again. He never came home.

On the 69th day of his treacherous journey, rescuers answered a distress call to find his boat capsized – and no sign of Peter.

But now, Louis was hearing his dad speak to him for the first time in 24 years.

“It was the most difficult experience of my life,” recalls Louis.

“The tape had been in my room all through my childhood.

“I’d see it and think to myself, ‘No, I can’t go there, it’s too much.

“For the first time I

For the first time I R was hearing my dad R talking to me as an adult, conversationally. I’d never heard him talk to me in that way.

“All my life I’d felt like I was in a long corridor – with the 1990s, when my dad died, at the other end and a thick mist in between.

“In that moment the mist dissipated and I felt I was there with him. I started sobbing, but persevered. I managed to hear the whole tape, then I completely fell apart.”

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n 1983 Peter became the first to row solo across the Pacific, from California to Australia – a feat that took him 294 days to travel 6,000 miles and won him a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Desperate to become the first to cross in both directions, the adventurer then made several attempts to row the 8,000 miles from Vladivostok in Russia to San Francisco.

Four times, he was beaten back by ferocious weather and 15-foot waves, but his spirit was unbroken.

But leaving behind his wife Polly and his toddler son was becoming harder and he swore his fifth try would be his last.

He set out on March 27, 1996, from Nakhodka in Russia. His wrecked boat was found on June 3.

Growing up, Louis learned to live with the loss – but found himself racked by questions about why his dad had left him.

Now 28, he says: “When I was young we didn’t talk much about Dad, it was so traumatic for Mum. “It was only in my teens that I got on the dial-up internet to

research him. I remember weeping at my computer aged about 14.

“That’s when mum sat me down and we had a massive, teary chat.

After that he was my hero.

“Then in my 20s the questions began. Why did he go, how could he leave me here at home? What did he love more, me or rowing? I needed answers.”

Now the same age Peter was when he began his rowing challenges, Louis has delved into his father’s life for a Channel 4 documentary, Lost At Sea. While he had never played the cassette, Louis had regularly watched VHS tapes Peter recorded on his lonely ocean journeys. One,

found on his wrecked boat, shows him shortly before he died.

In choppy seas, he smiles: “There’s a black cloud hanging over me. It’s about two months in. It’s one of the first good days for a long ti…” Then the camera cuts out.

Louis, of Swindon, says of the emotional final footage: “Seeing your dad… the winds are picking up and his hat blows off, he’s smiling but looks tired. There’s something unbelievably tragic.

“It’s so hard to see that lovely bloke just before he perishes in this terrifying and lonely place.”

He says he knows from other people Peter was charismatic

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and funny, but also dedicated. He adds: “I wish I could go for a beer with him, I think we’d get on very well. Nothing makes me more proud than when someone tells me I look or sound like him.” Peteer grew up near the Thames in East E London, forming an early faascination with boats. In his mid-200s, selling velvet paintings house--to-house, he knocked on the door of Derek King, who had rowed aroound Ireland.

They became frieends and Peter joined him on a bid d to row around the world. They didn’t quite make it, but Peter had caught the bug.

Aiming to beat an American bid to row the Pacific, he set off in October 1980 from San Francisco, but capsized off Hawaii. His boat Britannia II smashed on the rocks.

His tried again two years later, enduring two hurricanes and one capsize to reach the Great Barrier Reef on June 14, 1983.

Asked why he did it, Peter said: “It’s just an adventure. You don’t have to justify it.” Back home, he began plans to row the other direction.

In 2016, Louis realised the only way to get close to Peter and answer his own questions was by taking to the oceans. With rowing partner James Jones he set off on an 80-day trip, passing where his dad disappeared.

He recalls: “Mum must have been petrified, but she said, ‘I knew one day you’d want to do it’.”

But it was hearing his dad’s tape at last that vanquished the pain.

Louis says: “He said he wanted to be the first to do something, that it was important not to give up.

“At first I wanted to tell him the ’

records don’t mean a thing, being alive means much more. Now I feel a calmness. I’ve lived my dad’s story – I’m proud. And he’s still my hero.” matt.roper@mirror.co.uk @mattroperbr

■ Lost At Sea, Channel 4, next Wednesday, 10pm

emotional fina

He smiles...

It’s so hard to see him just before he perishes LOUIS BIRD ON FINAL VIDEO MADE BY HIS DAD

In that moment, I felt I was with him. I fell apart

LOUIS BIRD ON HEARING DAD PETER’S MESSAGE

FIRST TRY Peter on Britannia II with Derek King and rowing pal

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PROUD DAD Peter with wife Polly and Louis

WRECKAGE Peter’s boat is W f found capsized on 69th day

FAMILY TIME Trip was to be last try

MAKING HISTORY Peter at finish of first solo crossing

In that moment, I ADVENTURER Peter aboard his boat as he sets off on successful solo Pacific crossing

I NEEDED ANSWERS Louis with wreckage of dad Peter’s final voyage

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Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey Wednesday 10.00pm C4

‘He’ll always be my hero’ LONELY JOURNEY Main picture: Louis BIrd, now 29, is still coming to terms with the life and death of his father Peter, seen left, aged 33, with his nephew and niece and, below, in news reports after his tragic death

When Louis Bird was four, his father left to row the Pacific and never came back. Only now can he tell his dad’s story

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oung men often grow up idolising their fathers, only later to discover their flaws. For Louis Bird, it was a lesson he learnt ver y early on. From one perspective his dad, Peter, was a hero, but if his achievements in ocean rowing stood comparison with the mountaineering exploits of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the manner of his death was more akin to that of doomed climber George Mallory.

In 1983, Peter became the first person to row the 8,000 miles of the southern Pacific Ocean single-handed, going east-to-west from San Francisco to Australia, spending 294 days at sea.

His accomplishment was celebrated among the rowing community, although wider media attention was only fleeting. He continued to go to sea regardless, sometimes for almost a year at a time, becoming fixated on completing the much harder northerly crossing from Russia to the USA. On his fifth attempt in 1996 his boat was found overturned and his body was never discovered. He died aged 49, leaving behind his partner Polly and four-year-old son, Louis.

“He always said it would be his last one,” says Louis now. “He knew the risks, but when I came along he couldn’t believe how brilliant it was to have a son at 44. So who knows?”

Louis had long intended to commemorate his father on film, in part to mark his achievements

and in part to get to grips with some very complicated feelings. When he reached 27, the age Peter had begun rowing, and after almost a decade working in television, Louis decided the time had come. The result is Lost at Sea, an intensely moving documentary for Channel 4, bolstered by archive film taken during every one of Peter’s rows from the 1970s to his death.

The pivotal recording for Louis, however, was a 25-minute audio cassette entitled, “To Louis from Daddy”, recorded before his final ill-fated voyage. “The tape had been on a shelf in my bedroom all through my childhood,” says Louis.

“It’s the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to listen to, and when I finally did for the documentary, it was this exorcism of emotion.”

An extract from the recording is played in the film. “This is a tape for you to play while I’m away, so you won’t forget me,” Peter is heard telling his son. Later he says: “I think one of the questions you will ask will be, ‘Why are you going, daddy, I don’t want you to go’. The idea is to be the first to do something, it’s something that’s very precious to me and I hope one day it will be precious to you, too… to try and do something that’s a bit difficult and not to give up.”

Louis listens to his father’s voice in tears.

“Who cares about f *****g records? It’s such a f*****g waste.”

Louis has a few memories of their time together: being carried to the car after falling off his bike, getting “a monumental bollocking” for

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ouis rowed the mid-Pacific from California to Hawaii with a more experienced partner, earning his own Guinness World Record in the process. For a while it gave him what he needed, and Louis says he felt his father’s presence “the whole way”. But then the highs began to fade. “I was riding high for about three months, then I suddenly started to feel empty and further away from my dad. I was diagnosed with depression, which is partly why I want the film to show young people, especially men, that it’s OK to be vulnerable if you’re traumatised.”

His father was a man of many contradictions – an ocean rower who didn’t enjoy swimming, a gregarious, charismatic family man who would disappear on his own for months on end – so what drove him to keep on going? The answer has

eluded friends and family.

For Louis, it was akin to an addiction, a youthful adventure that became a dangerous, eventually fatal, obsession in part rooted in childhood trauma – the suicide of his own, bipolar-suffering father when he was a boy.

“That really was taboo and his family didn’t talk about it at all, but I think it’s why my dad left home early,” says Louis. “He was escaping his whole life, looking for freedom but eventually getting trapped. He believed ocean rowing was all he could do when really he could have done anything he wanted. I wish I’d been able to say: ‘Peter, get a grip. You don’t need to do this’. I felt like it was a waste. I learnt from my row that, whereas he became addicted to the sport, I got what I could from it and realised that a life on dry land is preferable.”

Most importantly, Louis is now reconciled to the idea that his father’s final voyage – one wrapped up in contractual obligations and lucrative sponsorships – was undertaken to provide for, rather than escape, his family. A heartbreaking final onboard recording captures a seemingly disillusioned Peter confessing that “I miss Louis very much… He’ll change more than anybody… I need to get there quickly so I can see him and spend time with him.”

“I’m so lucky to have that,” says Louis. “A part of me questioned what dad valued more: his family and me, or ocean rowing. It only crept into my mind in recent years that his final thoughts would have been about us.”

In the end, Louis feels more at ease with his father and his legacy. “I still have anxiety, I’ve still got things I have to deal with, and I’ll never bring him back and never know him. But I’ve done all I can to understand him. When I think about my dad now, I feel a calmness. He’ll always be a hero of mine.” GABRIEL TATE

PICTURE CREDIT

running around B&Q, jumping around on his bed together, even waving his father goodbye as he departed for his final voyage – “but I wonder if I made that up”. He only had the vaguest grasp of what his father was up to. “I just knew he’d go away for a long time, then come back and we’d hang out, then he’d go away again. I was always very proud I could tell people about my dad, without really understanding what it meant.

“I only started grieving for him when I was about 15. Mum shared memories of Dad, but we never got into the nuts and bolts of what happened and who he was. The only way she could get through it was to draw a line and get on with her life, so I started researching him online, getting home from school and weeping into my keyboard. It was like travelling down a long corridor, with a mist separating me and those years. It only dissipated when I listened to the tape.”

At 23, Louis decided to face “this sense of loss I’d been feeling” in the most dramatic manner.

“I thought: what’s missing? Back then I wanted to get closer to my dad and doing an ocean row felt like the only way to do that. It was the arrogance of youth, and I quickly learnt it was going to be far tougher than I thought.”

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Reviews

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A candid account of a son’s desperate need for answers Last night on television Anita Singh gh

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Sail away: Peter Bird disappeared while rowing alone across the Pacific Ocean

hat possesses a man to cross an ocean alone, in a tiny boat, not just once but many times? Peter Bird said simply: “Because it’s what I do.” For his son, Louis, that answer was not enough.

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey (Channel 4) was the story of a heroic adventurer and a little boy who grew up without a father. In 1983, Peter Bird became the first person to row the Pacific Ocean single-handed, on a voyage of 6,000 miles and nearly 300 days. But he did not stop there. He was determined to cross the Pacific in the opposite direction, from Russia to the United States of America. He died on his fourth attempt, in 1996; his boat was found but his body was not.

Louis was just four at the time.

The loss had left him with conflicting feelings: pride in his father’s achievements, but also bewilderment and anger. Why had Bird continued on such a dangerous path after becoming a father? How could he leave behind a partner and child?

This personal and candid documentary followed Louis on a journey to understand his father’s motivations. He was helped by a trove of footage both from news reports of the time and from Bird’s personal video diaries, the last of these found

on his abandoned boat. Bird was an unusual fellow, hugely sociable yet able to withstand months with only himself for company. There was something wonderful about the old film of him setting off on his voyages, in jeans and a sweater, with the casual air of a man going for an evening stroll.

But Bird’s youthful adventures, as his son pointed out, tipped over into obsession. Louis listened for the first time to a tape that his father had made for him. “This tape is for you to play while I’m away so you won’t forget me,” Bird said. “One of the questions that you will ask will be, ‘Why are you going, Daddy? I don’t want you to go.’

And the idea is to be the first to do something.” It was an emotional moment. Afterwards a distraught Louis said: “Who cares about f---ing records?” But he was comforted to watch a last video, in which Bird spoke of how much he missed his little boy.

In an attempt to get inside his father’s head, Louis completed his own ocean crossing – a brave undertaking for a young man with a fear of water. I hope it gave him some peace.

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he first series of Criminal (Netflix) was a novelty: a drama set almost entirely in a police interrogation room. Everyone raved about it, but that had a lot to do with

the fact that the first episode starred David Tennant and, as we’ve just seen in Des, he’s very good under caution.

Now the show is back with four more self-contained episodes. The casting of the suspects is top notch, including Sharon Horgan and Sophie Okonedo. But it is hard not to be distracted and irritated by everything going on around them.

Katherine Kelly, last seen as a highly unlikeable detective in Liar, does the same thing here except with a sleeker bob and a viscose blouse. The effect is such that I began rooting for the suspects who had the misfortune to face her across the table. Thankfully her colleagues, played by Rochenda Sandall, Shubham Saraf and Lee Ingleby, are better company.

It is the kind of show that makes policing look stupidly easy – suspects buckling and confessing to the crime in the space of 45 minutes. The acting, though, makes the episodes worth watching. Kit Harington is the standout as an arrogant estate agent accused of raping a woman who works for him, and loudly protesting his innocence.

Horgan plays the joker as a mother who has taken it upon herself to entrap and expose paedophiles. Kunal Nayyar (The Big Bang Theory) is a convicted killer, and Okonedo is the partner of a convicted killer, and the less you know about their stories before going into the episodes, the better.

Treat each episode as a Play for Today and you will find things to appreciate. The clever little tricks played by the team to elicit a confession are fun: padding out a file to make it seem heavy and packed with evidence when it’s thrown down on the table, for example.

But this is no Line of Duty and the whole thing has an air of unreality.

The surroundings have that oddly non-specific look that is the mark of a Netflix drama made for a global audience. The observation room has weird red light and the interrogation suite looks like the private dining room of a London design hotel. Any foreign viewer who watches this then ends up in an actual British police station will be desperately disappointed.

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey ★★★★ Criminal ★★★

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This was not a highly emotional film but a quiet, dignified search for peace

A son’s sombre journey to reconnect with his missing father Last night’s television

RUPERT HAWKSLEY » Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey Channel 4, 10pm ★★★★★ » Des ITV, 9pm ★★★★★ eter Bird will be remembered as the first person to row solo across the Pacific Ocean. His son, Louis, who was born in 1991, eight years after Peter’s achievement, has mixed feelings about this.

Yes, he describes his father as a “sporting hero”, but in 1996, on yet another solo rowing adventure, Peter disappeared. “Who cares about f**king records?” said Louis in Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey. “Such a f**king waste.”

This moving, intense film wasn’t really about rowing at all (though the footage of Peter setting out to sea in a woollen jumper and thick spectacles, as if pootling around on holiday, was excellent). It was about Louis, now 27, attempting to understand why his father left.

Louis travelled all over the world, meeting Peter’s acquaintances, and even rowed from California to Hawaii in order to “reconcile myself with what he did”.

As ever, the truth was found closer to home. Peter’s own father, Cyril, suffered from manic depression and drowned himself in the Thames. Louis, an engaging and poetic narrator, reflected: “It’s terrible for me to know that two generations of my family had been drawn to water, only for it to b h i ”

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Peter Bird was the first person to row solo across the Pacific Ocean

around him”, there was a hasty scene tacked on, in which Nilsen’s become their grave.” biographer, Brian Masters (Jason A sombreness pervaded Lost Watkins), told Nilsen that his book at Sea, even as Louis claimed to “isn’t a celebration, it’s a warning”. have found some closure, the film It would be unfair to say that Des culminating in him watching a tape, glorified Nilsen, who came across as deluded and dull, but Tennant recorded at sea, on which Peter certainly had some fun with the told his son how much he missed him. This wasn’t a highly emotional character. Masters’ line felt like a catch-all defence against criticism. film. Nothing was overplayed and The acting was pretty good, I liked it for that. It was simply a though Tennant – Scottish accent; quiet, dignified search for peace. cool detachment – presumably One wonders, though, if the didn’t have to stretch himself too storm clouds have truly cleared far. At times, though, the script was for Louis. It is not Larkin’s muchlaughable. When Masters and DCI quoted line, “They f**k you up, Peter Jay (Daniel Mays) visited your mum and dad”, which feels Nilsen’s house a final time, Masters most appropriate here. But two commented on the smell. “Do you that come later in the same poem: know the worst thing?” replied Jay. “Man hands on misery to man/ It “I don’t smell it anymore.” deepens like a coastal shelf.”

The concluding episode of this There has been plenty of fuss three-part series took place largely made about Des, in which David in court and was stronger when Tennant plays serial killer Dennis focusing on the frustrations of a Nilsen, who murdered at least rigid legal system. The partner of 12 men between 1978 and 1983, one of Nilsen’s victims (a strong often keeping their body parts in cameo from Chanel Cresswell) his London home. But I found it wept when Jay explained that the bloated and unsure of itself. It also evidence for this murder could not made me want to give up smoking, be added to the charges, since it which is very annoying. Watching had been raised too late. Justice, for everyone chain smoking for three her and her partner, would not be hours was like aversion therapy – done. This felt like a scandal that my eyes were stinging by the end. needed further unpicking. Alas, Having fawned over Nilsen’s we had another appointment with ability to “manipulate those Nilsen in his cell.

Twitter: @ruhawksley

tpr media consultants – September 2020

Picks of the Day/Previews TONIGHT’S PICKS

Lost At Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey, C4, 10pm

CRITICS’ CHOICE

PERSONAL VOYAGE

Lost At Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey, 10pm, Ch4

LOUIS BIRD learns about his father Peter, who disappeared on an ocean voyage. Peter was first to row across the Pacific by himself.

PETER BIRD was the first man to row solo and non-stop across the 8,000 miles of the Pacific Ocean. Thirteen years later, in 1996, while on another solo voyage on the Pacific, Peter went missing. This moving film follows Peter’s son, Louis — now 29 — as he explores his father’s passion for the sea.

B a T t h t c n

Wednesday PICKS OF THE DAY

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Louis Bird lost his father, Peter, when he was just four years old (left). His dad had become a global sensation five years previously by becoming the first person to row across the Pacific single-handedly.

But in 1996 Peter disappeared on another ocean voyage and was never found. In this documentary, Louis tries to piece together his father’s story and process his trauma.

TV CHOICE THE BEST OF THE REST ON TONIGHT L

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Lost At Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey C4, 10pm

Louis Bird was just three when he saw his adventurer father, Peter, for the last time. Peter had spent most of his adult life embarking on solo rowing voyages and there’s grainy footage of his exploits peppered through this highly personal film.

But it’s not the adventure that steers this narrative, it’s one young man’s search to understand the man he’d barely got to know.

Absent father: Louis with dad, Peter

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Viewing Guide Joe Clay

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey Channel 4, 10pm

In 1983 the Londoner Peter Bird set out to row solo across the Pacific Ocean, crossing 8,000 miles in a 29ft rowing

Top pick

boat, with no support vessel. He had to be rescued by the Australian navy in the Coral Sea, 33 miles from the mainland of Australia, but because of how close he was, the attempt was recognised and his feat celebrated worldwide. In 1991 Bird and his partner, Polly, had a son, Louis, but fatherhood did not stop Bird, co-founder of the Ocean Rowing Society, from continuing his adventures and he spent years trying the harder northern Pacific route — from Russia to America. During yet another attempt in 1996 Bird disappeared.

His empty boat, with a film camera still attached, was recovered, but Bird, 49, was never found. Louis was four years old. “I feel like I missed out on having a dad,” Louis says at the start of this personal film, in which he tries to piece together his father’s life using unseen archive film (including Bird’s video diaries at sea), photos and audio, as well as the memories of friends and family.

Louis, 27, sees his father as one of Britain’s “forgotten sporting heroes” and the film is a way of reminding the world about Bird’s achievements as well as Louis and his mother coming to terms with their feelings of loss and abandonment.

In his search for answers Louis takes to the sea for his own epic journey in a rowing boat, despite his fear of water.

Fiona Price previews tonight’s TV

, g In LOST AT SEA: MY DAD’S LAST JOURNEY (C4, 10pm), Louis tries to piece together his father’s final trip and understand what still drew him to such perilous adventures once he had a family.

In a moving look at grief, Louis tries to come to terms with his loss.

Television Wednesday 16 September

CRITIC’S CHOICE GERARD GILBERT

PICK OF THE DAY

Lost At Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey

10pm, Channel 4 In 1983, Peter Bird was the first person to row the Pacific singlehanded – a feat compared with that of Everest conquerors Hillary and Tenzing. He continued to set new records, including the longest time a person had spent alone at sea – not an ideal occupation for a new father, for by 1994 he had a son, Louis (left with Peter). This very personal documentary, incorporating Peter’s video diaries, is Louis’ attempt to come to terms with his father’s death at sea in 1996. “Who cares about records – such a waste,” says Louis, who, trying to understand Peter, overcomes his own fear of water to row from California to Hawaii.

tpr media consultants – September 2020

What to watch Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM

When Louis Bird was just four years old his father Peter vanished while trying to row the Pacific Ocean from Russia to the USA. His capsized boat was discovered floating in the waves.

“Growing up I always saw him as hero… but now it all seems more complicated,” explains Louis at the beginning of this moving film about the father he never truly knew. Described as the last of the amateur adventurers and a forgotten sporting hero, Peter Bird emerges as a complicated and damaged man with his own demons.

In 1983 he became the first person to successfully row across the Pacific Ocean single-handedly, travelling from San Francisco to Australia.

It was a remarkable achievement but Bird became obsessed with completing the journey from Russia to the USA and thus becoming the first person to cross the Pacific both ways. His wife, Polly, Louis’ mother, talks with disarming candour about what it was like to be married to such a man – “I think he was

Merry sailing: Peter Bird rowed solo across the Pacific in 1983

scared of being held in one place” – but it is Louis, candid, emotional and filled with yearning for the

father he lost too soon, who holds the attention in this beautiful, bittersweet film. Sarah Hughes

tpr media consultants – September 2020

LOST AT SEA: MY DAD’S LAST JOURNEY

tv. record

C4, 10pm AN EMOTIONAL documentary, this film follows one man’s personal journey to understand his father.

“My dad is one of Britain’s forgotten sporting heroes,” says Louis Bird.

In 1983, Peter Bird was the first person to row the Pacific single-handed, crossing 8000 miles in a 29ft rowboat with no support vessel.

He continued to go away on epic voyages even after he and his partner

Polly had Louis. But on a 1996 journey, aged 49, he vanished and they never saw him again.

His empty boat was recovered with a camera still intact.

“My memories of Dad have faded,” says Louis.

“But I’m lucky to have footage.”

As Louis looks for answers, there are poignant moments as he listens to his dad’s voice on audio recordings he’s never dared play before.

Louis even goes rowing on his own to overcome his fear of the water.

A moving account of a son trying to come to terms with a tragedy.

MEMORIES Peter on his 1983 voyage, and, inset, with son Louis

tpr media consultants – September 2020

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LOST AT SEA: MY DAD’S LAST JOURNEY

C4, 10pm An emotional documentary, this film follows one man’s personal journey to understand his father. “My dad is one of Britain’s forgotten sporting heroes,� says Louis Bird.

In 1983, Peter Bird was the first person to row the Pacific singlehanded, crossing 8,000 miles in a 29ft rowboat with no support vessel.

He continued to go away on epic voyages even after he and his partner

Polly had Louis. But on a 1996 journey, aged 49, he vanished and they never saw him again.

His empty boat was recovered with a camera still intact. “My memories of Dad have faded,� says Louis. “But I’m lucky to have footage.�

As Louis looks for answers, there are poignant moments as he listens to his dad’s voice on audio recordings he’s never dared play before.

Louis even goes rowing on his own to overcome his fear of the water.

A moving account of a son trying to come to terms with a tragedy.

MEMORIES Peter on his 1983 voyage, and inset with son Louis

tpr media consultants – September 2020

Tv What’s on TV tonight: Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey, Criminal UK, and more Your complete guide to the week’s television, films and sport, across terrestrial and digital platforms

By Telegraph reporters 16 Sep 2020 10:19:06 Wednesday 16 September

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey Channel 4, 10.00pm When Louis Bird was just four years old his father Peter vanished while trying to row the Pacific Ocean from Russia to the USA. His capsized boat was discovered floating in the waves. “Growing up I always saw him as hero…but now it all seems more complicated,” explains Louis at the beginning of this moving film about the father he never truly knew. Described as the last of the amateur adventurers and a forgotten sporting hero, Peter Bird emerges as a complicated and damaged man with his own childhood demons.

In 1983 he became the first person to successfully row across the Pacific Ocean single-handedly, travelling from San Francisco to Australia. It was a remarkable achievement but Bird became increasingly obsessed with completing the journey from Russia to the USA and thus becoming the first person to cross the Pacific both ways. His wife, Polly, Louis’ mother, talks with disarming candour about what it was like to be married to such a man – “I think he was scared of being held in one place” – but it is Louis, candid, emotional and filled with yearning for the father he lost too soon, who holds the attention in this beautiful, bittersweet film. SH

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey

New Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey 10.00pm C4 When Louis Bird was a toddler, his father died while rowing the Pacific. Now 27, Louis is trying to come to terms with his grief.

WEDNESDAY starts p86

tpr media consultants – September 2020

Regionals Seven Da ys MIKE MULVIHILL’S guide to the week’s TV

Lost At Sea: My Dad’s Journey 10PM, CH4 ))))

This emotional documentary follows Louis Bird on a very personal voyage of discovery as he sets out to find out more about the life and death of his father, the legendary ocean rower Peter Bird, who disappeared while trying to row the north Pacific in 1996.

CHANNEL 4

Lost at Sea: My Dad’s Last Journey, 10pm: Following Louis Bird’s journey to piece together the life of his father, Peter Bird, after he disappeared on a voyage at sea in 1996.

tpr media consultants – September 2020

LOST AT SEA: MY DAD’S LAST JOURNEY Channel 4, 10pm AN emotional documentary, this film follows one man’s personal journey to understand his father.

“My dad is one of Britain’s forgotten sporting heroes,” says Louis Bird.

In 1983, Peter Bird was the first person to row the Pacific Ocean single-handed, crossing 8,000 miles in a 29-foot rowboat with no support vessel. He continued to go away on epic ocean voyages even after he and his partner Polly had their son Louis.

But on a 1996 journey, aged 49, he vanished and they never saw him again.

His empty boat was recovered with a camera still intact.

“My memories of dad have faded,” says Louis. “But I’m lucky to have footage.”

As Louis looks for answers about his dad’s life, there are poignant moments as he listens to his dad’s voice on audio recordings.

He even goes rowing on his own to overcome his fear of the water.

A moving account of a son trying to come to terms with a tragedy.

Above: A young Louis Bird with dad Peter, pictured left on one of his ocean adventures

The same preview also appeared in the following regional newspapers: Bristol Post, Birmingham Mail, Cambridge News, Coventry Telegraph, Evening Gazette (Teesside), Daily Examiner (Huddersfield), Grimsby Telegraph, Hull Daily Mail, Leicester Mercury, Liverpool Echo, Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Nottingham Post, South Wales Echo, The Herald (Plymouth), The Sentenial (Stoke on Trent), Western Daily Press (Late City), Western Morning News (Cornwall).

tpr media consultants – September 2020

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