LOVE NATURALLY: BBC ANNOUNCES NATURAL HISTORY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL NARRATED BY BILL NIGHY

This Christmas, BBC One and iPlayer will take the rom-com somewhere it has never been before – into the wild.

Love Naturally is a new one-hour Christmas special narrated by actor Bill Nighy, revealing the extraordinary, surprising and often hilarious love lives of animals around the world and asking what they might teach us about that most mysterious of human emotions: love.

From awkward first dates and extravagant romantic gestures to jealous rivals, interfering parents, break-ups and second chances, it turns out the course of true love runs no smoother in the animal kingdom than it does in our own.

Made by Bristol-based Plimsoll Studios, part of ITV Studios, and co-written and executive produced by Love Actually writer and director Richard Curtis, Love Naturally combines spectacular natural history with the wit, warmth and emotional storytelling of a classic Christmas rom-com.

Across the planet, animals go to extraordinary lengths in the search for love.

A male polar bear sets off on an epic 60-mile romantic quest across the frozen Arctic, while a female king penguin must pick out the distinctive call of her potential partner amongst a colony of 80,000 birds. In Australia, a tiny peacock spider dances for his life to impress an exceptionally choosy female, while off the coast of Japan a male pufferfish spends a week constructing an astonishing two-metre-wide geometric “love nest”.

But Love Naturally goes beyond courtship to explore relationships in all their surprising complexity. From same-sex relationships among bighorn sheep and a young wolf whose father gets in the way of her budding romance, to long-term albatross relationships that can endure for decades, the special reveals a natural world filled with attraction, rivalry, companionship, family drama and heartbreak.

And behind the fun is a bigger question: what is love, and where did it come from?

Richard Curtis said: “I have always loved animal documentaries, and this was a wonderful opportunity to dive into the word of animals and romance at Christmas and around the world. I was amazed at the variety and humour and passion that we found - from Antarctica to the North Pole, it turns out that, in the animal kingdom, love actually may be all around.”

Jack Bootle, Head of Commissioning, Specialist Factual, BBC, said: “Christmas on BBC One is all about bringing people together, and Love Naturally feels like a great way to celebrate something that connects us all. It has spectacular wildlife, extraordinary behaviour, warmth, humour and some genuinely great love stories.

“Working with Richard Curtis and Plimsoll, we’re bringing the language of the romantic comedy to natural history and discovering that first dates, grand gestures, jealous rivals, family dramas and heartbreak certainly aren’t unique to humans. It’s funny, surprising and full of heart.”

Love Naturally is a 1 x 60' special for BBC One and iPlayer, made by Plimsoll Studios in Bristol.