This new eight-part affectionate, but irreverent, series takes a glimpse behind the scenes of Liverpool's Adelphi hotel. The first programme follows Grand National weekend-the Adelphi's busiest three days of the year. With the hotel at bursting point, staff are besieged by desperate racegoers, trainers and jockeys after the race is abandoned following a terrorist alert.

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[Photo caption] Service with a smile: general manager Eileen Downey puts on a brave face at Hotel Adelphi.

Hotel 9.30pm BBC1
The first in an eight-part documentary series about the Hotel Adelphi, a Liverpool landmark, starts with 20,000 racegoers stuck in the city when an IRA bomb alert delays the Grand National. The scenes are sometimes hilarious, sometimes hysterical, as the busiest time of the year for the hotel revs up. Hundreds of desperate punters need rooms and the banqueting room is opened with mattresses at £45 each.
The organised chaos, a mixture of Blitz spirit and commercial concern as prices go through the roof, is intensified by the forced removal of a tired and emotional customer and an exotically dressed working girl, plus the scenes of jockeys trying to lose weight in the sauna after bingeing.