David Attenborough, the 'academic' brother of Lord 'Dickie' Attenborough, is as well known in British households as any acting star - and more loved than most.
For decades, the often windswept, rain-lashed, always dishevelled-looking presenter has brought the world's most exotic wildlife into our living rooms from the remotest and most inhospitable corners of the world.
No one who has seen it can forget his barely audible voice and unmoving body as he sat among the gorillas of the African highlands or his frozen features in the icelands of Antarctica.
What few people remember is that Attenborough was once the controller of BBC2; he gave up the highly political inside job to return to the field to make such epic series as Life On Earth, The Living Planet, The Trials Of Life and The Private Lives Of Plants.
Attenborough In Paradise (Pearl, 6.20pm) was the realisation of a long-held dream; ever since he was nine, Attenborough has had a passion for Birds Of Paradise.
Together with two film crews, he headed for Papua New Guinea, which is home to more than 30 species of Birds of Paradise and 10 species of bowerbird, shy creatures living in the remotest areas of the rainforest - some of which had never before been filmed or scientifically described.