TV Review: Life, BBC1

This is a nature documentary of grand scope, of the kind that it seems the BBC can do with its eyes closed these days. After all, nature can provide a seemingly endless array of fascinating creatures, and the Beeb has the resources to get stunning footage from all corners of the globe.


While Life doesn’t disappoint in these respects, it isn’t up there with Planet Earth or Blue Planet. While each segment is excellent, they seem to have been strung together with little effort to make a coherent structure; David Attenborough links them with vague bits of narration about the life having to adapt to survive, or something equally non-specific. He even opened last night’s episode by saying: “Life is at its most intense in the relationship between predator and prey.” “Life is at its most intense”? What does that even mean? And in addition, last night’s episode seemed to re-visit some of the animals already featured in previous episodes.

Having said all that, I still have to admit that the programme-makers can get away with being a little lazy, since the content is so intriguing and beautifully shot. Ants that farm a fungus to feed their colony, tiny frogs nurturing their tadpoles in the water caught in the petals of a rainforest flower, underwater footage of the wonderfully bizarre-looking star-nosed mole – there’s plenty here to keep the viewer amazed at the diversity of the natural world. And, after all, that is the whole point of a documentary like this.

Theatre Review: War Horse, New London Theatre

War Horse depicts the First World War from the perspective of a farm horse commandeered by the army, and his teenage owner, who signs up and experiences the horror of the trenches while searching for his beloved animal. It has been rightly praised for the amazing life-size horse puppets. Intricately jointed and operated by three people each, their movements are incredibly life-like, right down to the twitching of an ear, the flicking of a tail. The puppeteers even combine their voices to produce a range of convincing horse noises.


What makes this even more impressive is that there is no attempt at absolute realism; the puppets although perfectly shaped, are not covered with paint or fur, they are just wooden frameworks with the puppeteers clearly visible. But there is something magical about theatre that acknowledges its artifice in this way, especially when the artifice is so ingenious. The audience can get completely caught up in the absolute horsey-ness of these creatures, while simultaneously admiring the craft behind the illusion. Indeed, I found I could flip between the two states of perception, as though looking at one of those trick pictures that can be either a black vase or two white faces.

The human actors in War Horse are unfortunately somewhat upstaged by the puppets, and their performances were sometimes a little strained and over-acted. But this was a minor gripe that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of a deeply moving piece of theatre, which uses the suffering of animals as an effective window into the horrors of war.