Recent posts loop

Hi

For some reasons I can’t get my theme to display my latest posts correctly, so I figure I’d do a page with my latest posts.
I found this code to create a loop to do so, but it returns an empty page. What else should I do apart from creating a new page template with that loop inside?
Thanks

<h3>Recent Articles</h3>
<ul>
<?php
    $recentPosts = new WP_Query();
    $recentPosts->query('showposts=5');
?>
<?php while ($recentPosts->have_posts()) : $recentPosts->the_post(); ?>
    <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</ul>