British Isles: A Natural History (DVD)

British Isles: A Natural History was a BBC television series in late 2004 in which Alan Titchmarsh travelled all over the UK to trace the origins of the country and find out how the landscape has changed.

As a geography student I watched the series when it was on television, while studying for my A-levels at the time. I have to say that I did not learn a lot from the series; it is rather basic and gives a very broad overview of the ...
...if older members of the British public find this sort of viewing entertaining, but as a 20-year-old I can tell you that it seems to be a waste of valuable filming time when they could be showing more beautiful landscapes! Anyway, that's the great thing about the DVD, you can just skip past these bits if you want to!

I have to praise the special effects in the series. Like any nature documentary it has the fast forwarded time series ... more

British Isles: A Natural History was a BBC television series in late 2004 in which Alan Titchmarsh travelled all over the UK to trace the origins of the country and find out how the landscape has changed.

As a geography student I watched the series when it was on television, while studying for my A-levels at the time. I have to say that I did not learn a lot from the series; it is rather basic and gives a very broad overview of the past 3 billion years. However, I enjoyed the series because of the beautiful shots of the UK, with stunning images of places like Ben Nevis and the peaks of the Cairngorms that would be difficult to get to see yourself. This is why I got the DVD, so that I can watch it as many times as I like, skipping to the parts that I find most interesting.

Alan Titchmarsh in general presents the programmes well. You can tell that he is a novice in the field of natural history, but with his interest in gardening, he conveys a genuine enthusiasm for learning about how landscapes develop over time and how wildlife adapts, something which draws the audience in. One criticism I have though is that some of the things he does can be annoying, such as when we spend 5 minutes watching him sampling diferent types of whisky, to see if he can taste the flavour of the different rocks which the water passed through. I don't know if older members of the British public find this sort of viewing entertaining, but as a 20-year-old I can tell you that it seems to be a waste of valuable filming time when they could be showing more beautiful landscapes! Anyway, that's the great thing about the DVD, you can just skip past these bits if you want to!

I have to praise the special effects in the series. Like any nature documentary it has the fast forwarded time series of flowers blooming etc that are taken so much for granted nowadays, but which are still impressive to watch. There's also a lot of magic created with computer-generated images of Britain during the ice ages, and Britain when it had a tropical climate, as well as clever images of what we may see in the future with global warming.

My general opinion is that it's an easy watch, nothing too taxing or difficult to understand. However, watching the programmes through once was enough for me, and I now switch-off while watching them. I love the DVD because I can watch my favourite bits over and over again, but as a whole series or for academic interest I don't think you'd want to keep watching it. But then what can you expect from a BBC documentary series? With the limited budgets and the aim to appeal to a wide-ranging audience I thiknk it has done well.

It's worth a watch, even if just to see stunning parts of the UK that you've never been to. 

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