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BBC HD right now: History of Safari

  • 28-04-2010 08:09PM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,570 ✭✭✭


    Just started at 9pm on BBC HD if anyone has it, The History of Safari with Richard E. Grant.

    Looks interesting, and not taking an 'anti' slant (yet!).


    ADDED:
    It'll be on BBC 4 on Sunday 2 May at 22:00 and on Monday 3 May at 03:00.

    It's on the BBC iPlayer, but is unfortunately "Not available in your area" :(
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s6b8q


    Here's the synopsis:
    The History of Safari with Richard E Grant

    For almost 100 years, big game hunters - from Theodore Roosevelt to the British Royal Family - came to British East Africa to bag the 'big five'. Now, luxury 'eco safaris' continue to drive its economy. It has been both East Africa's damnation and its salvation, that wildlife is the greatest natural resource it possesses.

    Richard E Grant - who grew up in Swaziland - examines the controversial history of the safari. Exploring the world of the big game hunters and the luxury of today's safaris, he goes on a personal journey to experience how the beauty of the bush made Africa the white man's playground.

    Plotting the major landmarks in the development of the safari, Grant uncovers a world of danger, glamour and gung-ho. He reveals how the safari was continually reinvented as explorers and ivory hunters were replaced by white settlers, guns gave way to cameras and direct British rule to independence.

    He discovers how safari became one of the central constructs through which British rule over East Africa was imposed, provided the social touchstone for the white settlers and was eventually transformed by the glamour of Hollywood, the power of the dollar and the traveller's desire for an 'authentic African experience'.

    As someone born and raised in the privileged world of the ex-pats, Grant takes an insider's perspective on the scandals and adventures of the elite class of Brits who ran the show. He meets their descendents and delves into the rich material archives of their family homes, discovering that for the remaining whites in the region this history is still very much alive.

    As the trophy hunt became an icon of high society, everyone from Ernest Hemingway to British nobility and Hollywood stars were soon clamouring for a piece of the action. And as hunters decimated Africa's wildlife, they also surprisingly introduced the first conservation laws, if only to protect the supply of animals to shoot.

    Embarking on safari himself, Grant experiences the beauty and the danger of being up close to the big game animals and accompanies modern hunters on safaris, where animals are still killed and the patrons still argue that hunting equals conservation.

    The film is full of frontier colonial characters whose lives, exploits and attitudes describe a very particular time in Britain's relationship to Africa and its wildlife, when the continent was part Wild West, part idyll and part colonial experiment - where life could be lived between the crack of rifles at dawn and the setting of the sun at cocktail hour, largely oblivious to the indigenous Africans themselves.

    Through creative use of film and photographic archive, as well as actuality with those involved in big game hunting and luxury safaris today, the documentary evokes the spirit of decadence, exploration and adventure of the safari. Ultimately, it reveals how safari has been and continues to be a barometer of our attitudes to travel, our colonial inheritance and Africa itself.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 782 ✭✭✭riflehunter77


    Well Rovi was it any good, just in from work so did not see it will try and catch it on sunday.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,570 ✭✭✭Rovi


    It's 90 minutes long, so it's just over.

    Interesting history of the legendary Roosevelt and Hemingway safaris, and talking to current and retired big game hunters and outfitters.

    The overall tone appears to be that camera and balloon safaris are the way of the future, but the hunters aren't being portrayed as bloodthirsty nutcases, and there's an acknowledgement that sustainable hunting and conservation can be complimentary.

    The presenter (actor Richard E. Grant) stalked gazelles with an empty rifle up to the point of taking 'the shot', and accompanied a professional hunter with a client who took a wildebeest.
    He appeared to be genuinely amazed at the 'rush' of the whole experience and can see how people get so much out of it. He said that if there was some way that the animal could somehow be 'restored' and let loose again, he'd pull the trigger in a flash. :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 782 ✭✭✭riflehunter77


    Rovi wrote: »
    It's 90 minutes long, so it's just over.

    Interesting history of the legendary Roosevelt and Hemingway safaris, and talking to current and retired big game hunters and outfitters.

    The overall tone appears to be that camera and balloon safaris are the way of the future, but the hunters aren't being portrayed as bloodthirsty nutcases, and there's an acknowledgement that sustainable hunting and conservation can be complimentary.

    The presenter (actor Richard E. Grant) stalked gazelles with an empty rifle up to the point of taking 'the shot', and accompanied a professional hunter with a client who took a wildebeest.
    He appeared to be genuinely amazed at the 'rush' of the whole experience and can see how people get so much out of it. He said that if there was some way that the animal could somehow be 'restored' and let loose again, he'd pull the trigger in a flash. :D


    Sounds like a good show indeed will look forward to watching it the weekend.
    Auld Teddy Roosevelt was some buck alright, if you can at some point pick up a copy of African Game Trails by him its a great read. The quantity of game they took during the safari was unreal.

    http://www.amazon.com/African-Game-Trails-Wanderings-Hunter-Naturalist/dp/0312021518


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 782 ✭✭✭riflehunter77


    Coming on now again at 2200 hrs on BBC 4.


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