TV review: Building the Ice Hotel

That memo, it seems, never made it to the documentary department at Channel 5. As a result, we end up with programmes like Building The Ice Hotel.

This hour-long show told the story of the annual construction of a hotel made entirely from ice and snow, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

It's cool in more ways than one. Construction takes place in temperatures of around minus 15 degrees, and the end result is a lesson in sharp edges, style and chic.

And it needs to be – the most expensive suite costs £650 a night, and 12,000 guests will enjoy it during the course of the year, supping £8-a-pop vodkas from solid ice tumblers in the ice bar.

It requires 60,000 tonnes of snow, and 3,000 huge blocks of ice are sliced from the frozen lakes and carried to the site to allow work to continue.

It is an outstanding feat of engineering, that has to be replicated in the space of six weeks, year after year, and it's great to see it take shape.

But I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed the experience more with the sound turned down.

Five is not a channel that's known for its understated manner, and the script for this programme fitted the stereotype perfectly.

"Their biggest fear: warm weather," it yells.

"This is the year the ice hotel crew will be tested to the limit," it bellows.

"It's déjà vu, all over again," it honks.

When temperatures begin to rise, putting the project under pressure for time, everybody appears quite calm about the building of the hotel.

Except for the programme makers, that is.

To them, this is as bad as things can get. They yell: "It's the warm snap from hell!"

Project manager Mark Armstrong is relatively calm, even when he injures his ankle (an injury which is also 'from hell').

The demands on the crew are strenuous, and the hours are long, but with the positive attitude and hard graft going on around the site you never really feel that the project will fail, even when cracks appear in the structure as the temperatures bob above zero degrees.

But this isn't Grand Designs. Not for us any of your artful camera work or softly-spoken pontificating.

No, chugging guitars and artificial peril are the order of the day – the race against time is on, and don't you forget it.

"Guests have already paid for their rooms, but in the arctic, Mother Nature always has a say. She can be your best friend..." Or? "Or your worst enemy." Ah yes, thanks for that.

Building The Ice Hotel, the programme, really ought to be more interesting than it is.

The lingering fascination with the battle against the weather is seriously overstretched. It's an amazing project, why not let the story tell itself rather than inventing your own narrative? The programme could comfortably have been 20 minutes shorter and been twice as watchable for it.

Building the ice hotel is a remarkable feat of ingenuity and human endeavour. Building The Ice Hotel, sadly, is anything but.