Overview
- The 90-minute special, airing Friday, May 8 at 8:30pm on BBC One and iPlayer, will broadcast live from London’s Royal Albert Hall.
- Host Kirsty Young will lead tributes with contributions from Chris Packham, Steve Backshall and Sir Michael Palin, plus performances by the BBC Concert Orchestra, Bastille’s Dan Smith and Sigur Rós.
- The BBC’s Making Life on Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure, premiering Sunday, May 3, revisits the 1979 series with new accounts of the Rwanda gorilla shoot, a near loss of film during unrest and the first live coelacanth footage.
- A free five-minute adaptation of the Natural History Museum’s immersive Our Story With David Attenborough will run at Outernet London from May 8 to May 31, offering a condensed walk through Earth’s history and a vision for the city’s future.
- Life on Earth is credited with reshaping natural history TV and elevating Attenborough as a trusted conservation voice, a legacy the centenary events aim to share with mass audiences on air and in public spaces.