TV review: Undercover Boss

It didn't last for long after all, and was so many years ago now that you'd need to dredge the deepest recesses of your memory banks.

It's a show which lost its appeal when it lost its innocence; doomed from the moment self-conscious housemates became more interested in performing exhibitionist antics for the cameras than they did in showing us their true personalities, or revealing the way they really thought.

Candid Camera-style shows, on the other hand, have served up moments of pure, honest, TV gold for years. The packaging may change from one decade to the next, but the core ingredients remain no less appetising.

And so it's a pleasure to welcome back Channel Four's Undercover Boss, where high-flying business executives take extraordinary (some may say slightly sly, even dishonest) steps to ensure their companies are fighting fit, by going undercover, cashing in their plush carpeted, air-conditioned penthouse offices to test out the temperature on the shop floor.

It's the same principle as the equally captivating Secret Millionaire. Rich, privileged people connecting with the working classes, and seeing if they feel compelled to help.

I always wonder why the stars of these programmes don't get rumbled. They appear such fish out of water, and their flimsy backstories come across as so far-fetched, that I like to think I'd see right through it if a square peg in a round hole appeared with a camera crew in tow asking probing questions on my watch.

But, just as footballers are quick to remind players-turned-pundits, it's clearly a totally different perspective when you are sat on the analyst's couch.

Last night, in the first episode of the new six-part series, 64-year-old Phil Couchman, chief executive of courier giant DHL, donned a token disguise to see what staff at his fast-growing company were being asked to endure each day.

The softly spoken Aussie posed as job-hunter Eddie King, who was inviting his workers to believe he was taking part in a TV documentary on the challenges facing folk from Down Under to find employment in the UK.

And actually, on this occasion, he did get rumbled by one wily old fella in the warehouse at East Midlands airport, which only validated the authenticity of the show.

Eddie/Phil tried life as a call centre worker, rural courier, airport load-shifter, and London delivery man, before returning to the boardroom to dole out some home truths to detached directors, who looked like they dreaded what they were about to hear.

Shropshire and Staffordshire took centre stage in one part of the programme, as the boss picked up on unrest about rumoured salary discrepancies and discovered that, sure enough, couriers in Telford were indeed being paid £1,800 more each year than their counterparts in Stoke. The situation was corrected in a matter of days.

Undercover Boss is effectively two shows for the price of one. First up, it's a piece of entertaining car-crash drama which never lets us down when the 'big reveal' comes along.

But secondly, it's an educational fly-on-the-wall documentary on a British business which reminds us that, although the career paths we choose dramatically vary, most of the personnel tensions between managers and the masses are exactly the same.

A happy workforce is a productive workforce. And this show illustrates just why a boss who is prepared to take the trouble to see things from both sides of the fence – and is brave enough to hear some potentially painful home truths – is far more likely to succeed. Not to mention get some top-rate free PR for his business on national television . . .