National treasure Sir David Attenborough was asked to do something quite unusual in a bid to stay warm whilst filming in the Arctic.
Working in temperatures of -18C, the broadcaster was with executive producer Mike Gunton and the team doctor Patrick Avery when they filmed in snowy northern Finland for BBC One's The Green Planet.
Gunton confessed that, even though the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful, it was 'brutally cold' as filming took place, and they needed to get their blood moving again, The Mirror reports.
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He said: “One of our sound recordists had spent some time in that part of the world, working with the local indigenous people there, who have a particular way of keeping warm.
"They do a thing called a penguin dance. Not that they're ever get any - it’s the wrong place for penguins!
“What they do is they stand like this (goes up and down on his toes) and they hold their hands like this (at right angles to his body). And you go up on your tiptoes and as you do, you do this (flaps hands).
"And what it does is it pumps blood in a particular way around your body, and it helps send it to the extremities to keep your fingers and your toes warm. It really works.
“David, the doctor and I were basically up to our knees in a snow drift, waiting for the drone to do a shot. And we were all getting a bit cold and the sound recordist said, ‘Do the penguin dance!’ So we did and it was great fun.”
The Seasonal Worlds episode aired last week, and was produced by Rosie Thomas, who has told how the team went to great lengths to ensure that 94-year-old Attenborough was well cared for.
Rosie said: “It was an amazing experience. He had hot water bottles and heated blankets and he was wearing about six coats at one point.”
She said he had brought the good weather with him, explaining: “I was there for 10 days and it snowed every day apart from the day David was there and the sun came out and shone wonderfully. He brought it with him. It was very cold but absolutely stunningly beautiful.”
The production crew got in and out of the Borealis forest just in time, as shortly after they left in February 2020, the pandemic hit.
This week's episode will air on Sunday (January 30) at 7pm, and will take viewers on an exploration of the world's deserts, examining different types of cacti.
Travelling to Arizona, Sir David shows us just how vicious the Teddybear Cholla cactus can really be, as its spines slice through two pairs of thick gloves to pierce his skin.
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