Making Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure | Preview (BBC One)

In 1976, production began on David Attenborough's Life on Earth. No-one had ever attempted a natural history series on this scale before. This is the remarkable story behind one of the BBC’s most famous wildlife blockbusters. A three-year, hair-raising odyssey around the world, travelling to 40 countries, across a million miles, and filming over 600 species.

Making Life on Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure goes behind-the-scenes on this ground-breaking landmark series, featuring exclusive interviews with David Attenborough and other members of the original crew.

With fascinating insights, they reveal the highs and lows of filming the series during a truly exciting moment in television history, when global jet travel and colour filming were still in their infancy. Along the way, the crew encountered multiple challenges, including a coup in the Comoros, being shot at in Rwanda and threats from Saddam Hussein’s army in Iraq.

Broadcast in 1979 and watched by 500 million people worldwide, it confirmed David’s reputation as the most successful and influential wildlife filmmaker of our time. His astonishing encounter with gorillas in the mountains of Rwanda for this series is frequently voted one of the top TV moments of all time.

Making Life on Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure airs Sunday 3rd May at 8pm on BBC One.