Canal Boat Diaries: Sheffield canal where The Full Monty was shot features on popular BBC show

Canal Boat Diaries, which follows Robbie Cumming on his travels by boat around the UK, has won legions of fans seduced by the gentler pace of life on the water, and its honest reflection of the rewards and challenges that brings.

It is back for a fourth series, with the first episode, taking him from Sheffield to Keadby, via the Tinsley lock flight, airing on BBC Four today, Monday, May 1, at 7.30pm. Things do not go entirely smoothly on the first leg of Robbie’s latest journey, as he is forced to make a running repair.

Robbie begins his trip on the Sheffield & Tinsley Canal, which starts at Victoria Quays, just outside the city centre. It is on that canal, close to the Bacon Lane bridge in Attercliffe, that the famous opening scene from The Full Monty, in which Gaz and Dave jump onto a submerged car after stealing some scrap metal from a factory, was filmed.

Speaking to Toby Foster on BBC Radio Sheffield, Robbie said Sheffield was one of his favourite places, which was why he chose to begin the new series in the city. Explaining the mishap in the first episode, he said: “As soon as we go down through those locks something bad happens straight away. A part of the boat drops off into the water and I have to fish it out. But I’m told by my producer that whenever something goes wrong it makes great TV.”

Robbie, who films the series on his mobile phone, which he said is the ‘only way to get those little moments that happen’, also told how his girlfriend, who featured in the previous series, is no longer a part of his life but that he is ‘back in my happy place’ as it had been ‘difficult living on land and on water’.

The latest series takes Robbie 300 miles across the north of England and the Midlands, from Sheffield to Braunston, in Northamptonshire, over the course of four episodes. In the second episode, airing tomorrow, Tuesday, May 2, he travels from Keadby to Kiveton Park via the picturesque Chesterfield Canal.

You can watch all the episodes on BBC iPlayer.