Sir David Attenborough was persuaded to do a “penguin dance” to warm up while filming at temperatures of -18C in the Arctic.
The BBC star was with executive producer Mike Gunton and the team doctor Patrick Avery when they filmed in snow-covered northern Finland for BBC1’s The Green Planet.
Gunton said that it was breathtakingly beautiful but “brutally cold” as they watched filming take place - and they needed to get the blood moving again.
He explained: “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.”
Last week the producer of the Seasonal Worlds episode, which aired on Sunday, told how they’d gone to great lengths to ensure Sir David, nearly 94 at the time, was well looked after.
Rosie Thomas 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 team got in and out of the Borealis forest just in the nick of time before the pandemic hit, in February 2020.
This weekend’s episode, which airs at 7pm on Sunday, explores the world’s deserts and examines many 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.
