Abstract
In Zoo Quest for a Dragon, the BBC crew worked in the field on its own, without the support of the Zoological Society of London. This chapter examines this series’ contribution to the construction of the public persona of David Attenborough as a trustworthy zoological expert. The chapter makes the case that this third Zoo Quest series and the other travel-based wildlife TV programmes it inspired, notably the Travellers’ Tales series and Gerald Durrell’s programmes, put forward empathy with wildlife as the main evidence of expertise for the wildlife broadcaster. Considered in the context of the unravelling of the British Empire, these series promoting empathy as a source of knowledge of wild animals are interpreted as relocating the British imperial project in nature programmes made for television.
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Notes
- 1.
Zoo Quest to Guiana (BBC 1955), episode 6, transmission date: 18 October 1955.
- 2.
C. McGivern, ‘New Patterns in BBC Television Programmes’, Radio Times, 16 September 1955, p. 15.
- 3.
Attenborough, personal letter to Leonard Miall, 9 May 1956, BBCWAC T6/439/1.
- 4.
‘David Attenborough’s Zoo Quest in Colour’ (BBC 2016).
- 5.
David Attenborough, personal letter to Leonard Miall, 9 August 1956, BBCWAC T6/439/1.
- 6.
Daily Mirror, 11 September 1956, p. 11.
- 7.
Radio Times, Vol. 132, issue 1716, cover.
- 8.
David Attenborough, ‘Zoo Quest. In search of a Dragon’, Radio Times, 28 September 1956, p. 45.
- 9.
David Attenborough, Zoo Quest for a Dragon, episode 1—Borneo. First broadcast 5 October 1956 on BBC television. Available online at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00dgmd0/zoo-quest-zoo-quest-for-a-dragon-1-borneo-part-one. Last accessed 23 November 2018.
- 10.
Smith to Attenborough, 10 October 1956, BBCWAC Folder T6/439/1.
- 11.
Audience research Report, Zoo Quest, 6- ‘Dragons for Komodo’, 3 December 1956, BBCWAC T6/439/1.
- 12.
Head of Talks, Television, ‘Travellers’ Tales’, memo to Head of Programme Planning Television, 12 March 1956, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 13.
Attenborough, ‘Travellers’ Tales’, memo to Assistant Head of Talks, Television, 19 April 1956, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 14.
Attenborough, ‘Future Programmes’, memo to Talks Organiser, Television, 8 February 1957, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 15.
Attenborough, ‘Travellers’ Tales’, memo to Assistant Head of Talks, Television, 19 April 1956, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 16.
Head of Talks, Television, ‘Travellers’ Tales’, memo to Controller of Programmes, Television, 24 October 1957, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 17.
Controller of Programmes, Television, ‘Travellers’ Tales’, memo to All Members of Programme Board, 18 October 1957, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 18.
Controller of Programmes, Television, ‘Travellers’ Tales’, memo to All Members of Programme Board, 18 October 1957, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 19.
David Attenborough ‘Natural history programme plans’, memo to Nicholas Crocker, 11 November 1957, BBCWAC T6/430/1.
- 20.
A. Anson to S.L.B. [Sidney Bernstein], ‘Zoo and Animal Programmes Ratings’, 6 August 1958, ZSL Archives, ‘Granada Confidential File’.
- 21.
David Attenborough, ‘Lagus of “Zoo Quest”’, Radio Times, 19 October 1956, p. 45.
- 22.
Faraway Look (1959–1960, BBC), first broadcast between 18 September 1959 and 6 November 1959.
- 23.
Radio Times, ‘Bafut Safari’, 28 March 1958, p. 4.
- 24.
Zoo Quest for the Paradise Bird (BBC 1957) and Zoo Quest to Paraguay (1959).
- 25.
David Attenborough to Head of Talks, Televisions, ‘Expedition to Tonga and the South Seas’, 1 May 1959, BBCWAC T6/396/1.
- 26.
James Spillius to David Attenborough, personal letter, 17 April 1959, BBCWAC T6/396/1.
- 27.
David Attenborough to James Spillius, personal letter, 5 May 1959, BBCWAC T6/396/1.
- 28.
The Times, ‘News in Brief’, 4 August 1962, p. 4.
- 29.
‘Attenborough and Animals. The first programme in a new series’. Audience research report, 4 November 1963, BBCWAC R9/7/65.
- 30.
Attenborough to Head of Talks, Television, ‘Expedition to Tonga and the South Seas’, 1 May 1959, BBCWAC T6/396/1.
- 31.
Reginald Pound, ‘Critic on The Hearth’, The Listener, 6 October 1955, p. 568.
- 32.
The phrase ‘Pop. Nat. Hist.’ was coined by Jeffery Boswall, to derisively qualify Survival in the early 1960s. See Willock 1978, p. 78.
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Gouyon, JB. (2019). Wildlife Television, Empathy and the End of the British Empire. In: BBC Wildlife Documentaries in the Age of Attenborough. Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19982-1_4
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