Exclusive chat with Steve Backshall ahead of Deadly Live

BAFTA award-winning wildlife presenter and adventurer Steve Backshall tells us all about his upcoming live arena tour.

Transcript

00:00chatting to you because you're bringing deadly live to talk arenas across the uk and for the

00:05first time so can i ask why yeah so i've been touring now for about 12 years um i've done

00:12tours in in asia and australia here in the uk they've always gone really well and it seemed like

00:19it was time to step things up so time to make everything bigger time to look at deadly through

00:26time all the way back through evolution back to uh the time of the dinosaurs even before the time

00:30of dinosaurs and see how animals have changed to talk about all of their adaptations to talk about

00:37how eyesight and different animals functions differently and may help a predator be able to

00:42focus on its prey talk about bite and venom and hearing and super senses and super skills

00:47and to be able to illustrate that with size so you know an awful lot of the stuff that i do even in a

00:54big theater being able to have a life-sized whale on stage is really hard because they're massive

01:00being able to have life-sized dinosaurs on stage is really hard because they're enormous

01:04well when you're in an arena but all of that becomes possible so my idea is that we are going

01:11to create this cacophony of nature that is going to be red in tooth and claw that is going to be

01:16full of um of good science you know bits of it are going to be like a ted talk and then the next

01:22second it's going to be like a christmas panto and then the next second it's going to be circus

01:26skills and stunts and techniques and experiments and things going bang and me getting hosed down

01:30from head to toe and poo and it's going to be all of the things that i think people have loved

01:36about deadly over the years and then some so you have done this life before this is just it on its

01:42biggest stage ever no no no no so so there are there are elements of it that we will have done

01:48in the in the tv shows before but you know i don't think as far as i can think now i don't think i've

01:54done any of it before on stage it's all new um so it's gonna be it's it's a massive gamble i mean

02:02there's a lot of stuff in there that could go wrong a lot of stuff in there that could make me look

02:07really really silly um but i think you've got to you've got to own that you've got to enjoy that

02:13you've got to be prepared to roll with the punches and you know when you're doing live television it's

02:18kind of the same thing you know you've got to be able to react at a second to what an animal does

02:22in front of you so i i think with our ambition with the kind of creativity that we're bringing to this

02:29it could be something really special why should people get tickets to come see you

02:34i think that it's going to be an absolute riot there is a lot in this that they will not have seen

02:41before it's gonna it's gonna dance from panto and slapstick and fun and silliness and you know

02:50absolute lunatic craziness to real serious science and i guarantee that no matter who you are there is

02:57going to be some science in here about animals that you have not heard of before you know every

03:01time i've done one of these shows there there have been professors of biology in the audience who've

03:05gone i never thought of it like that before or i never heard that fact before is that really true

03:09and i promise that even if you're into wildlife there's going to be something in this show that

03:14will make you think there'll be something in there that you haven't heard before and it will probably

03:18be followed by me getting hosed down in in gunge or or poo or it could be you know a life-size t-rex

03:26stampeding across the stage you know it is going to be an absolute rollicking ride and it's going to

03:33take in the entire evolution of life on our planet through to the present day so if you like fun if

03:40you like animals if you like wildlife and if you don't like any of that but you just like seeing me

03:44get hosed down in dino poo this is the show for you

03:46you