Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life

Sir David Attenborough takes you on a deeply personal and visually spectacular journey to key locations around the world, showing you how he came to understand Darwin's revolutionary theory of evolution. This BBC production includes awe-inspiring wildlife photography. A feast for your eyes, from the world's leading naturalist.

David Attenborough asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before?
David starts his journey in Darwin's home at Down House in Kent, where Darwin worried and puzzled over the origins of life. David goes back to his roots in Leicestershire, where he hunted for fossils as a child, and where another schoolboy unearthed a significant find in the 1950s. And he revisits Cambridge University, where both he and Darwin studied, and where many years later the DNA double helix was discovered, providing the foundations for genetics.
At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin's great insight revolutionised the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are.
But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world, and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related.

"One of TV's great heroes talking about his own hero - it doesn't get better than this ... He does it through the life and work of his hero, and also through his own life and work, which has always had Darwinism at its core. The two strands have been artfully twisted together, into a beautiful double helix of television that makes perfect sense ... Attenborough's been on TV for my entire life. It's interesting to see old clips of him, short-sleeved, crouching with a big tortoise on an early trip to the Galapagos islands, or with that massive flower in the 1970s. I think he's improved with age - he's twinklier now, more charming."  - Sam Wollaston, Guardian

"With grace and fluency he [Attenborough] demonstrated that what always comes to Darwin's rescue is scientific evidence. Modern geology shows that the continents have moved, explaining why the same species turn up all over the place, radio dating reveals that the Earth is old enough to have evolved so many species, and DNA has shown Darwin not only to be right but why he was."
 - Andrew Billen, The Times

"Sir David is pretty fit. He may be 82, but look at him here, clambering around in Charnwood forest, where he used to go fossil hunting as a boy. And perched high on a Scottish cliff, looking out over a sea stack - the Old Man of the BBC meets the Old Man of Hoy. I think that when David Attenborough dies, many, many years from now, they'll discover that he too is made of layers of rock, each one sparkling with crystals of wisdom."  - Sam Wollaston, Guardian

"There can be no greater story - and certainly nobody better to write and present it ... a superb documentary."  - Sunday Times

"Attenborough does a winsome job..."  - Sunday Telegraph

International Wildlife Film Festival 2009
Best of Festival Awards:
Best Script
Best Educational Value
Best Category Awards:
Best Presenter/Host
Best TV Program Between $250,000 - $500,000 Budget
Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival 2009
Finalist: Best Presenter-led Program