It is amazing to see Judi Dench in the wild. Almost the last of her kind – there are thought to be only three or four grandes dames left in the country, mostly roaming round Downton Abbey – the ITV documentary Judi Dench’s Wild Borneo Adventure was a rare chance to see her unscripted and at play. Her natural habitat is the stage and screen, but with the adaptability for which this species is known she looked as comfortable in the jungle as she does anywhere else, from the Lyttelton to exotic Marigold hotels.
Hang on, I’m getting a message through my earpiece … Ah. Apparently, we were meant to be marvelling at the creatures and canvas of the tropical rainforest through which Dame Judi journeyed, not Dame Judi herself. But who, really, has ever been able to take their eyes off her when she’s about? She looks, at the age of 84, as she has always looked – part-sprite, part-empress – and sounds like she has always sounded – whisky, honey and just about to tell the filthiest joke – and remains the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. This time, with orangutans nearby.
Her Wild Borneo Adventure was the kind of jolly-with-a-point that is occasionally offered to national treasures. This time, it was a trip to the island land of slow lorises, sun bears, elephants, hornbills and trees that grow straight up into the heavens, all of which we are killing because we are so rapacious in our consumption, because we are so relentless in our quest for profit, because we are so endlessly, fathomlessly stupid. La Dench is a particular fan of orangutans, and this is enough for her to get the job. She sponsors three of them, and I do like to imagine them all sitting in a literal green room together wearing cast-off kaftans and swapping tales about careering round the countryside on Ralph Richardson’s motorbike (“Killed several civilians, darling – nobody cared! It was the 60s!”) while Larry looked askance.
With the conservationist David Mills (“my chap”), Dench flew over the deracinated outskirts – the logged forests and palm oil plantations – on into one of the last untouched regions of rainforest in south-east Asia, in the heart of the island. It is also one of the oldest in the world – 130 million years old; there when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. There she meets scientists who show her all the extraordinary sights therein, from the dung beetles that clear the floor poo-ball by poo-ball, to the ferns growing 250ft off the ground (she heads up there in a harness while you try not to think about the insurance admin involved) in trees that play host to an estimated 40,000 types of insect, and the harlequin tree frogs that leap and glide among them. There’s also the kubong, which I am not over yet. We watched one of these arboreal mammals jump, stretch out a furry blanket of skin and virtually fly to its next post. It was like watching a billion years of evolution both expand and telescope before you. I’m going to need someone to send Eileen Atkins or Joan Plowright over there to take a more in-depth look.
There is nothing here we haven’t seen before, but the facts and figures remain astonishing. Tropical rainforests cover 5% of the land but play host to 50% of the Earth’s tree species – one 150-square-mile stretch of Borneo, captured in an extraordinary condensed computer image by the scientist Greg Asner, contains 3,000 of them. The tallest is twice the height of Nelson’s Column. The number of orangutans, whose name translates as “person of the forest” and with whom we share 97% of our DNA, has halved over the past few years.
Dench’s greatest contribution – apart from pulling in the punters in the first place – was to treat every revelation of the forest with equal awe and wonder. She was as agog at the insects she saw (the giant katydids were worth the price of admission alone, even if you will never close your eyes easily at night again) as she was the orphan sun bears being released into the jungle after their stay at a local centre that rescues cubs whose parents have been killed for their parts, which are considered valuable in traditional medicine. This approach kept the delicate balance of all the elements of a fragile ecosystem at the forefront of your mind, which should always be the way.
So, all we’ve got to do now is stop killing things, despoiling forests, plundering virgin lands and plumbing the depths of stupidity and selfishness. Oh, and keep Dame Judi Dench alive for ever. I know we can do all this if we try.
