Attenborough's 'Life Story'

NEVER mind the debate about who’s going to be the next David Attenborough, the 88-year-old incumbent of primetime natural history presenting returns with a landmark series telling the remarkable and often perilous story of the journey through life.

It is a story that unites each of us with every animal on the planet, because we all set out on this journey from the moment we are born. For animals there is just one goal in life – to continue their bloodline in the form of offspring. This series follows that journey through its six crucial stages: first steps, growing up, finding a home, gaining power, winning a mate and succeeding as a parent.

Tonight we look at the beginning of life, where the first hurdle in life is infancy. Vulnerable, naïve but determined, some young animals face their biggest challenges in the first few days of life.

There are two-day-old barnacle geese who face a deadly 400-ft jump to reach food before they are even able to fly, and a humpback whale calf getting ready to start on a 3000-mile migration from Hawaii to the Arctic.

Even the most formidable predators are vulnerable in infancy; in Kenya a lion cub only has a one in five chance of surviving its first two years. There is also a new brood of orchid mantises whose first predators are each other, a fur seal in New Zealand undertaking intensive training in a hidden pool and meerkats in South Africa learning how to hunt ants and scorpions.

Specialist, film-making techniques include being the first wildlife series to be shot at 4K resolution, the sheer unprecedented detail of which draws the viewer into the scenes. A new range of stabilised camera systems have allowed camera-operators to move around their animal subjects and immerse the viewer in the world of turtles, seals and kangaroos.

New aspects of animal behaviour shown include a whale protecting a calf from sharks; months in a hide used to film spectacular bird courtship; how young Archer Fish learn a complex ballistics technique from older fish; joining cheetah sisters as they bring down their first large prey and capturing interaction between a cobra and a family of meerkats.

The sequences are told in a way that helps to immerse the viewer in the experience of individual animals and to show the behaviours that animals use to overcome the great challenges of their lives.

Attenborough has talked recently about the death of his famous brother, Richard, and reveals that such was the comic genius of the 90-year-old that Christmas time was spent “just sat around, roaring with laughter”.

On his own future, Attenborough says: “The time will come when something is bound to go to pot. Actually, I have got a pair of new knees. I’m a lucky rascal. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and think, ‘Who is this old Rumpelstiltskin, hobbling in? Oh, my God, it’s me’.”

For more information on how the series was made visit bbc.co.uk/lifestory

George Clarke's Amazing Spaces (Channel 4, 8pm)

DURING the last run, Wearsider George and his master craftsman pal Will Hardie travelled across Texas to see how the locals made small, inexpensive homes. Now they're off to Italy, and the first destination is so high up, it's only accessible by helicopter. Back home, George meets a man turning a private jet into a crash pad and a tattoo artist with designs on an old railway carriage.

The Great Fire (ITV, 9pm)

THOMAS (Andrew Buchan) manages to rescue his children from his sister-in-law Sarah's house, but she's nowhere to be seen. Sarah (Rose Leszlie) is being held in the notorious Newgate jail by Denton (Charles Dance), who tries to force her into giving evidence against the Duke of Hanford's mysterious Spanish guest. She refuses - until he threatens to harm her son David.

Meanwhile, the King surveys the damage to the city from the river, but his plan to rebuild it and compensate the citizens for their losses looks set to be scuppered by Hyde and Lord Ashley.