Cliveden House and Corinthia Hotel London to star in two prime-time TV shows
The spotlight is set to be shone on two of the UK's highest profile luxury hotels with the screening of prime-time television documentaries.
Tonight will see the first of a four-part series on Channel 4, A Very British Country House, which will take viewers behind the scenes of Cliveden House (pictured) in Taplow, Berkshire.
Meanwhile, the Corinthia Hotel London will be the subject of A Hotel for the Super Rich and Famous, a two-part BBC 1 series which will launch on BBC 1 on Thursday 29 November.
The actor Simon Callow is the narrator of the Channel 4 series, filmed at the five-red-AA-star, 48-bedroom Cliveden House, which accommodated Meghan Markle and her mother Doria Ragland the night before her wedding to Prince Harry in May.
Alongside general manager Kevin Brooke and executive chef Andre Garrett, other staff to be featured will be restaurant manager and head sommelier Sean Arthur, butler Michael Chaloner and wedding coordinator Lydia Kenny.
Channel 4 said that it is the first time that Cliveden, part of Iconic Luxury Hotel and owned by property company L&R, has allowed cameras to film within the property as "it attempts to reinvent itself for the modern era", with the programme following the hotel's 150 staff as they are "pushed to the limit by increasingly demanding and outrageous guests".
The Corinthia documentary was filmed by Jane Treays, the award-winning director of Inside Claridge's, which was made when Thomas Kochs was the general manager of the Mayfair hotel. Kochs was appointed managing director of the five-AA-star, 283-bedroom hotel Corinthia - owned by a nine-strong, Maltese-based group headed by the Pisani family - in April 2017.
Key highlights of the programme will be the transformation of what used to be the Massimo restaurant into Kerridge's Bar & Grill in partnership with two-Michelin-star chef Tom Kerridge.
The BBC said that the two programmes, shot over the course of a year, "revist the land of the rich, who can ask for anything they want and are willing to pay for perfection".
What neither programme is unlikely to feature is the resignation of Garrett from Cliveden House, following his appointment as executive chef at the Corinthia, a post he will take up in January 2019.
A Very British Country House will be screened tonight and the next three Sunday nights at 9pm on Channel Four. A Hotel for the Super Rich and Famous will be shown on BBC1 at 8pm on 29 November and 6 December.
André Garrett to leave Cliveden House to join Corinthia Hotel London as executive chef >>
Royal wedding: Hotels hosting Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed >>
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