- Radio Times
- Review by:
- David Butcher
Iain Stewart’s reserves of wonder are inexhaustible. He is awed, amazed and beamingly enthused by everything. Fair enough, perhaps, when his subject is such a large and extraordinary one — the transformation of a barren rock into our living planet, courtesy of plants.
His final chapter looks at comparative latecomers to the botanical feast — a mere 66 million years ago or thereabouts. At that point the world was covered with trees, and had been for hundreds of millions of years. But a plucky challenger evolved a way to get the better of the woody giants using fire as a weapon, and thereby sparked a revolution in the animal kingdom, too. The challenger was, of course… grass.
About this programme
3/3. Iain Stewart explores the part played by grass in major changes to the planet throughout history, revealing how this simple plant unleashed firestorms on the savannahs of South Africa, how it transformed life in the oceans and how, in the oldest temple on Earth, grass triggered human civilisation. Last in the series.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Presenter
- Iain Stewart
Crew
- Director
- Nick Shoolingin-Jordan
- Executive Producer
- Mark Hedgecoe
- Producer
- Nick Shoolingin-Jordan
- Series Producer
- Andrew Thompson
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