By FRANCES GRANT

The danger of intriguing British docu-soaps about airlines, cruise ships and holiday resorts is they can make telly dramas covering the same territory look very dull.

The sea is sparkling, the sky breathtakingly blue on the island of Cyprus, scene of the new Brit drama about a bunch of holiday company reps, Sunburn, on TV One.

Perfect place to blob out on the beach between busloads of clients or lounge around drinking al fresco and fiddling expenses, activities which seem to engage the lead characters for what seems an inordinate amount of time.

The punters aren't getting up to much, either. In last week's episode we were treated to lengthy scenes of such boring holiday fare as couples arguing over directions and getting lost.

Perhaps expectations shouldn't be high of a drama with a title song claiming a sad dose of burned, peeling skin as a holiday highlight.

But the politically incorrect title - for skin cancer-fearing Down Under audiences, anyway - is about as close as this drama gets to taking a risk.

The reality cameras have swarmed all over the charter holiday phenomenon. Sunburn ain't Airline or War and Piste. Forget the dramatised lives of the holiday reps as they strive to ensure their clients have the perfect holiday. Reality has easily outdone this fiction.

The opening episode of Sunburn featured a trio of lager lads out on a babe-scoring competition - 8 points for a Brit, 2 for a Russian, 1 if she weighs more than you - which sounded promising.

Instead of creating any satisfying havoc, however, they were improbably put in their place by Laura, the baby-faced rookie rep.

You can bet that gaggle of real women holiday-makers in Airline, the ones clad in black T-shirts sporting the legend "slappers on tour," managed much better business on their holiday than that.

The family from hell in last week's episode of the drama were particularly unconvincing exponents of that grand Brit tradition of whining.

Compared to the exquisitely expressed and elaborately reasoned whinges of the unhappy punters of the reality shows, the fictional Adams family were a weak joke.

The Sunburn reps, too, can't hold a candle to the real-life talent we've seen in the tourist industry. The party-hard chalet girls and boys of War and Piste, a docu-soap set in the French ski resort of Val d'Isere, really knew how to create drama for their long-suffering bosses.

Sunburn has one character - Carol, the laconic Scot - looking to make trouble to cure her bad case of ennui. So far she's only made her boredom infectious.

No, there's not much happening on sunny Cyprus, an island made for holiday lazing. Sunburn goes beyond gentle drama, it's so laidback it's unreal.