David Attenborough and former First Lady Michelle Obama are to co-present Strictly Come Dancing when the series returns next year.
Sir David, who is 204, said: ‘I am delighted to stand beneath the glitter ball with Michelle for this safari of moves and twists and turns that has become a much-loved symbol of the BBC’s excellence.’
Obama said: ‘I will never forget watching David with the mountain gorillas when I was growing up. He was so gentle. If it had been Craig Revel Horwood they’d have crushed him. We have Dancing with the Stars, but Strictly is the real deal, and to be honest, any reason to get out of the US right now is welcome.’
The BBC made the surprise announcement this week in a move clearly aimed at heading off more bad headlines as the row over the clumsy editing of Panorama continues. Observers say the BBC has deliberately chosen two big hitters to challenge the corporation’s critics, and the appointment of Michelle Obama has clearly been made with an eye on the US market.
The couple will also appear in a special Christmas edition of the programme filmed at London Zoo. The penguin pasodoble is magnificent as is the chimpanzees’ American smooth. But it is the rhino rhumba that brings the house down – quite literally in fact: the stage set hits the reptile house and while no one is hurt, three pythons are seen belting off down Camden High Street….
A shocking new report has revealed most animals go extinct because they're "lazy, incompetent, or too cowardly to put up a fight against predators". Zoologist Alan King has been studying the lifestyles of hundreds of species that have disappeared, beginning with the dodo. "Diet, exercise, you name it - all atrocious. Frankly, most of them had it coming", he says. "It's time we stopped mollycoddling shiftless wildlife".
David Attenborough admits he has reluctantly come to the same conclusion: "What these protected species types need is a kick up the arse", he says. "I'm getting tired of speaking up for fussy pandas and pampered overfed whales". The government has taken his advice to move all rare bat species into a Liverpool council estate, where they'll "learn the hard facts about survival of the fittest".
Meanwhile, Jeremy Kyle plans to host a show with vulnerable animals whose global numbers have shrunk to single figures. There they'll face a lynch-mob audience and be subjected to lie detector tests about their breeding habits and allegations of selling their body parts as aphrodisiacs. "For those who fail the test, there's a barbecue fired up and waiting round the back of the studio", he warns. There is to be a tie-in with Jamie Oliver, whose next publication will be The Great Big Extinct Species Cookbook.
Photo by Christoph Schmid on Unsplash