For goodness snake! It’s an iguana drama

FOllOwIng the revelation that a Bafta-winning sequence on Planet Earth of an iguana being chased by snakes was concocted from several takes involving different animals, I have been inundated with mail from some of our best-known TV animals.

SIR: As one of the snakes involved in the so-called ‘ iguana chase’, I am deeply upset by the grossly unfair way in which we were portrayed. To set the record straight: I was offered only a few minutes in ‘hair and make-up’ before I went on. This meant that I was not looking my best.

I have learnt to my cost that the camera does not favour scaly skin, yet the cosmetics department flatly refused me any sort of moisturising cream or foundation.

The iguanas, on the other hand, were treated like VIPs. They were offered extensive make-overs, and sat with a team of cosmetic artistes for several hours before their first takes. I know for sure that the BBC acceded to a demand from a leading iguana to be filmed only from the right-hand side, so as to catch his best profile. No such facility was ever extended to those of us in the snake community.

Is this not another case of institutionalised anti- snakery in today’s BBC? A. Snake (Ms)

SIR: Speaking as one of Britain’s bestloved iguanas, I am mystified by the absurd account of the iguana-andsnake sequence on BBC’s Planet Earth offered by Ms. A. Snake in the previous letter.

A word or two about myself. Over the years, I have made frequent appearances on television. Your readers will no doubt recall my performance opposite John Thaw and Helen Mirren in Morse: The Mystery Of The Missing Iguana.

Others will have cherished what the Observer described as my ‘deeply moving’ portrayal of an out-of-work single-parent iguana in Ken Loach’s groundbreaking, ‘I, Iguana’.

Given my international status, it was only right that the BBC should offer me full use of their cosmetics facilities. With their help, I was able to give what Wildlife magazine described as ‘one of the stand-out performances of our age, not only by an iguana, but by any member of the wider lizard family’.

Grateful as I am to the many snakes employed in the filming of the sequence, I fear most viewers would have been incapable of telling one from another.

Has your correspondent Ms A. Snake ever acted to great acclaim opposite Joan Collins in Dynasty? Is she on first-name terms with Martin Shaw after appearing as a witness for the defence on Judge John Deed? I think not. Until she can boast of such accomplishments, I would strongly advise her to keep her forked tongue firmly in her mouth. Ignatius Iguana, OBE

SIR: As lead snake in the iguanachase sequence, I was appalled to hear the Planet Earth director sneer that — and I quote — ‘unfortunately lizards, snakes and iguanas aren’t good at “takes” ’.

I made extensive preparations for the scene in which my character attempted to crush the fugitive iguana. To get myself in peak shape, I endured a stringent weight-training and kick-boxing regime for two months in extreme temperatures. To understand something of life ‘in the wild’, I conducted wideranging interviews with many ordinary, decent, hard-working snakes on the Galapagos Islands.

Most viewers will agree with the critic of Nature magazine that my research helped bring ‘heartbreaking sensitivity’ to my role as Bonecrushing Snake No.1. So it ill- behoves the director of the sequence to cast aspersions on my commitment to the project. Incidentally, despite our on-screen tussle, the lead Iguana and I remain the best of friends. When the shoot ended, we both went out with Sir David Attenborough for a couple of drinks, and the three of us enjoyed a good laugh about the crazy nature of our profession! Benedict Snake

SIR: As a crocodile actor — veteran of over a hundred films including Crocodile Dundee and Live And Let Die — I agree that the BBC is biased against certain animals.

Over the past few years, I have often been approached by wildlife directors to perform my popular ‘gazelle-attacking’ routine.

These days, I can do it without blinking. I simply sit quietly in the water until the director shouts ‘Action!’ Then I leap out and make a tremendous show of ‘attacking’ a passing gazelle.

Off- camera, the gazelles and I are firm friends. Why, they ask, do directors always want to see crocodiles attacking gazelles, and not vice-versa? And why does the BBC never acknowledge the tremendous contribution the crocodile community makes to the worlds of charity and the arts? Instead, it is always snap-snap-snap, and I, for one, am sick and tired of it. Clarence Crocodile