Getting David Attenborough to Speak

A memory on his 100th Birthday.

That day in 2015, I did not expect to be heavily involved. I am not sure why. Perhaps I had impostor syndrome, because David Attenborough was in the house, the illustrious RSA House in London, and he was chairing an event in a series that was part of my project on The Seven Dimensions of Climate Change.

A visual overview of the seven dimensions of climate change project.

I worked closely and well with the RSA events team in general, but this event seemed different. A Climate of Hope, as it was billed, was a wonderful way to end the project - with a world-famous name! And yet, curiously, I found myself zoning out in the run-up to the event and on the day. It makes little sense now, but perhaps because I had watched David Attenborough on TV for years, the idea that he was somewhere other than the TV was hard to fathom. I even wonder if I felt I could perhaps just sit back and watch, as if on the sofa.

Luckily, half an hour or so before the event started, Abi Stephenson, the event curator and a fabulous writer, asked me what I was going to say at the start and how I envisaged the event unfolding. I indicated that I hand’t given it much thought, and didn’t realise I was speaking. She looked at me askance, as if to say: this is your f******* event, Jonathan, get with it!

Abi Stephenson, not posing at all, outside of the RSA Great Room, where the event took place

And so I came to my senses.

Abi also conveyed that David Attenborough, now settled in the green room, had made it very clear that he expected to perform entirely in a chairing role for the speaker, Tim Flannery, who was promoting a new book on climate change. This made us nervous because we had led our pitch for the event with the more famous name, and the 200 or so people about to enter the building had come mostly to hear from the national treasure (who does not like to be called a national treasure).

I went in, said hello to David and Tim, and gently indicated to David both how delighted we were that he could join us, and that we hoped he might play a relatively active chairing role. However, he knew what I was up to, and he seemed resolute that on this occasion, he wanted to know what Tim had to say and that he was here entirely to honour Tim’s work and help bring it to even greater public attention.

Now. It’s fair to say that Tim Flannery has indeed made an extraordinary contribution to climate change and humankind. He is a world-class science communicator, with a long list of awards, including Australian of the Year in 2007. It’s also true that his book of the time, Atmosphere of Hope, is invaluable. In a world saturated with climate lament, here was a book about what could still be done, by somebody who gets what is still necessary, and possible, and why. There is a reason David Attenborough wanted to hear from this great thinker and writer, and it is a sign of Tim’s calibre that David Attenborough, no less, said yes to the opportunity to chair the event.

Tim Flannery

Yet it’s also true to say that, especially in a UK context, Tim Flannery is not David Attenborough, perhaps the most famous broadcaster in the world.

I’m not sure who took this photograph, but well done.

With the crowd here mostly to hear David, and David keen not to speak, but to listen to Tim, we began to wonder how this would play out…

I introduced the event (from c14:54) to the audience to the best of my ability and commented on David Attenborough’s extraordinary “voice that stays in the soul”, in particular. But I look unusually nervous, I am clearly a little ruffled, and I messed it up a little. I took a seat in the crowd and figuratively crossed my fingers.

As we feared, David Attenborough began by stating that he was here just to ask questions, and learn what he could from Tim. Tim gave a great talk and good answers to the questions, but I sensed a restlessness in the audience, most of whom had come to hear the household name speak.

Yet Attenborough remained almost silent, and steadfastly so. He was like a large cat purring along while Tim spoke, or perhaps like a Shakespearean actor getting by with his stage presence alone, and waiting for the moment where his perfect dramatic timing would steal the show. Or at least, so we all hoped. But as the minutes went on, he kept passing every question onto the main speaker, with just a look or a gesture, and almost no comment at all.

I think Tim also began to feel uncomfortable, and he didn’t even know that on the live Twitter feed, several audience members were expressing disquiet that the person they had come to hear from had hardly said a word. Attenborough may have spoken anyway, but there was a distinct possibility he would not, which is why I remember what happened next so vividly.

With just a few minutes to go, I put my hand up.

“Sir!”, he said, in a way I won’t forget.

I tailored the question so that the man himself would have little choice but to answer it. Even then, he initially passed it to the speaker, but the whole room was relieved when Tim passed it back to him, and finally, one hour into the event, it looked like David Attenborough might, after all, have a few substantive words to say.

I had asked him, essentially, whether he thought humans could change, and he answered that yes, he thought they probably could, though he seemed to place more hope in the sun. It was a stunning few minutes, and well worth the wait. You’ll have to watch the clip below to get the details.

After the event, I brought a few guests to the green room to meet the speakers. Everyone had felt what I had felt - that the whole ‘David Attenborough event’ might have gone by without David Attenborough saying anything of note, so I am glad I did what I could to get him to talk.

I also took the chance to capture meeting him, for posterity.

He was 89 when we met, and now, eleven years later, his birthday is a national event and international news.

Happy 100th Birthday, David Attenborough!