DAVID Attenborough at Glasto, Judi Dench in Borneo. Is there a battle for supremacy going on between Britain’s national treasures? If so, the ante was upped in Judi Dench's Wild Borneo Adventure (STV, Tuesday, 9pm). Talk about parking your tanks on a chap’s lawn.
Dame J was kind enough to present her credentials prior to flying off to the rainforest. She loved trees, and she had recently adopted three orphaned orangutans. Why shouldn’t she front a nature documentary? Why not indeed. She was not there to tell us things, there were plenty of experts on hand to do that, she was there to be awestruck on the viewers’ behalf. Oh, and to twinkle. No-one twinkles like Dame J.
READ MORE: Bowled over by Borneo
She marvelled at the 100 million-year-old rainforest (“It’s like flying over broccoli!”); she was charmed by a praying mantis, even after it went for her jugular (“I’m fond of insects, but there is a limit!”); she even thought the dung beetles delightful as they performed a Pickfords with some turds. Personally, I could have done without that close-up.
Highlight of the evening was when she accompanied conservationists deep into the jungle to release three sun bears. Like her orangutans, they had been orphaned. There is a lot of orphaning going on out there, and guess who is doing it? Humans, of course. Reducing her voice to an Attenborough-like whisper, she told us that the bears were the size of Labradors, but that was where the similarities ended. While they looked adorable, they could be ferocious. That’s exactly the sort of information we need to know, the kind that Attenborough probably would not provide lest it be seen as too obvious.
One of the team had raised the bears from cubs (“They call me Papa Bear,” he said. What? The cubs do? That is clever.) He sent them on their way with much love and the hope they never see another human for the rest of their life. Unless it’s Dame Judi. For her one would make an exception.
She did catch sight of an orangutan, far up in a tree. Next week she is going to the orphanage itself. Expect tears and enough twinkling to light a small city. As for Attenborough, he should know he has some serious competition on his hands. I’d suggest he retaliate by playing Lady Macbeth, but between you and me, I don’t think he has the legs for it.
The week’s other new kid on the naturalist block was Helen Macdonald, presenter of The River: A Year in the Life of the Tay (BBC4, Wednesday, 9pm). A falconer and the author of the prize-winning H is for Hawk, Macdonald is hardly a newbie, but she has not done as much on the box as Attenborough. No-one has. Her brief seemed simple enough: follow the mighty river from source to sea. Only it turned out that it was not that easy to trace a river’s source. Nature had pulled the first of many miraculous feats, and they kept on coming over the 90 minutes. Did you know there was such a thing as a swimming songbird? Were you familiar with the concept of deep time?
READ MORE: Rowers who train on the Tay
Macdonald wore her knowledge lightly, serving morsels to the viewer like a bird feeding its young. She revealed that women anglers tended to catch the biggest salmon, which men put down to the fish being attracted to female pheromones. Why couldn’t it be due to women’s superior skills, wondered Macdonald? She can come again.
Like Dench, Macdonald saw enough to be concerned about the future. The film ended with her talking to scientists about why fewer salmon are returning from the sea. One possibility is that global warming is making the ocean warmer and forcing the fish to go further to find food. Humans again.
Have you caught Harry Hill's Alien Fun Capsule (STV, Saturday, 6.45pm)? Think a cross between the comedian’s TV Burp and Shooting Stars. Last week, as coincidence would have it, there was a naturalist among the guests in the shape of Chris Packham. He was on a team with the Krankies, God bless them. It was that sort of show. Featuring such delights as a round up of local newspaper billboards (“Owl attacks bus driver”; “Creme brulee kitchen terror”) it also had film of a pug dancing to George Michael. There can never be enough pugs dancing to Wham.
As an act of charity I dropped in again on Wild Bill (STV, Wednesday, 9pm). Having previously slated the drama about an American cop (played by Rob Lowe) joining the Lincolnshire police force as a tonally all over the shop mix of the macabre and the bizarre, I had another peek just in case it had improved. That will be a no, then.
READ MORE: Failure to make an arresting start.
The main trouble is there is no one in the drama, apart from Lowe, to like. Maybe if Lowe’s character was a vet instead of a cop, and he started an animal orphanage which Dame Judi Dench could drop in on …
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