The Mayfair Hotel Megabuild, review: Claridge’s documentary feels like an in-house PR exercise

In The Mayfair Hotel Megabuild (BBC Two), we were informed that Claridge’s is “home from home for world leaders, film stars and royalty”. None of these being available during the course of filming, the programme had to make do with David Walliams, here to tell us that he is a regular and a great fan of the hotel’s afternoon tea.

Essentially, this three-part series functions as an advert designed to get more customers through the Art Deco doors. You’ll need deep pockets: at time of writing, a superior room (their cheapest) for tomorrow night will set you back £930 excluding breakfast. But the service is impeccable, which is why the hotel has so many repeat customers. One couple featured developed such an expensive mini-break habit that they declared happily: “We’ve got no savings, but we’ve got some fabulous memories.” Claridge’s, explained the wife, “is my cocaine”.

The megabuild of the title is two-fold: a four-storey roof extension with a penthouse and – less boringly – a five-storey mega-basement as deep as the hotel is high. This was all to be done while the hotel remained open to guests, a logistical headache and an idea that every engineering firm but one turned down.

The excavation was carried out not by builders but by miners from Co Donegal (pretty much everyone here, from the boss down to the general manager and the construction director, was Irish). It was quite the juxtaposition, seeing these men toiling away while well-heeled guests milled around upstairs. The miners expressed zero interest in seeing the hotel’s finery. Their foreman was asked if he had ever seen the inside of the hotel. “Not at all. I just know what they tell me.” And what did they tell him? “Well, it’s completely luxurious if you have the dosh.” His boys sweated until their shirts were soaked and they burned off 3,000-4,000 calories a day, he said, which probably equates to about two Claridge’s afternoon teas per person.

It was all reasonably interesting, but yet another one of these programmes that felt as if it had been made by an in-house PR and marketing team.