World In Action!

Award-winning writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce on the amazing animal stories in a new documentary about our planet…

- Natasha holt

Over the course of any 24 hours, there are millions of incredible things happening all over our planet.

From sloths swimming to try to find mates to mayflies enjoying their only day of life, creatures everywhere are doing their best to survive, find food and occasionally have some fun.

Now, using incredible footage from numerous wildlife programmes, including Sir David Attenborough’s acclaimed The Blue Planet, new documentary, Earth: One Amazing Day, charts the sun around the planet to show exactly what happens in a day.

‘Everything is dependent on the sun,’ explains scriptwriter and children’s author Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who also scripted the spectacular London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony.

‘Sometimes we feel separate from nature but we live by day and night too. I wanted to find common ground between us humans and the rest of nature. I hope people take away a sense of beauty from the film and the idea that this is a shared planet and it’s worth saving.’

The programme, narrated by Robert Redford, took three years to make and features 38 species from 22 different countries.

‘It’s a day, and each day has tragedy, comedy and hunger aplenty,’ says Frank. ‘We’re always talking about life on other planets but our own planet is so extraordinary that it’s very possible that this is the only life there is. It’s likely that we’re the guardians of the most incredible thing in the whole universe.’

Here Frank tells TV Times about all the amazing things he unearthed in a day…

MORNING