ANALYSIS by editor Tim GlanfieldThis was no ordinary TV show premiere.
At the heart of the Natural History Museum, in the shadow of a vast blue whale skeleton, this Netflix Global event brought together television royalty and actual royalty to not only celebrate an eight-part series – but to urgently press the case for environmental change.
Sir David Attenborough received rapturous applause and a standing ovation from an A-List audience that included the Prince of Wales, Prince William and Prince Harry, David Beckham, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and Ellie Goulding to name a few, as he explained “what we do in the next 20 years will profoundly impact the next few thousand.”
Attenborough went on to explain, “The ability to tell this story in almost every country in the world at the same time via Netflix brings the possibility of an unprecedented global understanding of the one place we all call home.”
The sense that all of us must urgently change our relationship with the natural world was echoed by the Prince of Wales, president of the World Wildlife Fund, who was joined by his two sons in the front row.
He spoke of how humans have instigated “the world’s sixth mass extinction event” and warned of the “existential threat to our whole civilisation” that climate change threatens.
Powerful and evocative messages that all involved hope Netflix’s global scale will send everywhere alongside the stunning Our Planet series.
