Cheeky, curious and cuddly . . . the orphan apes as lovable as a child
USE hidden cameras to film a bunch of naughty children and you have the perfect low-budget telly format. We can’t get enough of kindergarten psychology shows such as The Secret Life Of Four-Year-Olds.
For an even cuter twist, do the same with baby apes.
Orangutan Jungle School (C4) introduced the mischievous pupils at a Borneo sanctuary for 70 orange orphans, rescued after poachers and loggers killed their parents.
A succession of grim documentaries have warned of the carnage in Indonesia, where deforestation by palm oil farmers has stripped the islands of half their rainforest and left these great apes at the brink of extinction.
This show was gentler and made easier viewing, with just a mention of the violence that brought these youngsters to the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue Centre. Most of the episode, the first of three, concentrated on the antics of the little apes as they learned the foraging skills they will need when they are eventually returned to the wild.
As with the shows featuring young humans, this format delivers scant information. I learned little, and spent a lot of time watching not very much at all. The only memorable, original sequence, involved the youngest apes as they learned to climb trees and reach out for bananas that the staff dangled on long sticks.
One smart show- off called Valentino quickly worked out it was better to ignore the tree and climb the stick instead.
Valentino was a sweetheart clinging desperately to his human babysitter, Letha, a young married woman with no children, who admitted she treated the ape as her foster baby. He needed milk, he needed help cracking coconuts but most of all he needed cuddles — in the wild, orangutans don’t let go of their mothers until they are two years old.
The older animals were having a lesson in ‘ snake awareness’. A keeper brought a rubber snake which he waggled at the youngsters while making menacing noises. To help the lesson, the babysitters all pretended to scream and run away.
Whether such basic methods can really prepare orangutans for the dangers of the wild seems doubtful. The state of one emaciated animal, returned to the centre just a few months after release, certainly raised worries. But if nothing else, this enchanting series is a reminder that young orangutans are as inquisitive, emotional and lovable as human children.
There was a touch of the orangutan about the young Rembrandt, with his wildly tousled auburn hair. The 17th- century Dutch genius left a succession of self-portraits, starting with one at age 22 that hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
But it was an almost identical picture, discovered in a National Trust house in Devon, that had art connoisseur Dr Bendor Grosvenor hot under the collar in Britain’s Lost Masterpieces (BBC4). He believed it could be an earlier study for the priceless masterpiece, and not a mere copy by an anonymous student.
Apart from a few digressions by co-presenter Emma Dabiri, who bizarrely took it into her head to learn golf halfway through the show, this was practically a perfect copy of BBC1’s Fake Or Fortune.
The detective work was just as gripping, as an expert restorer removed layers of varnish and centuries of nicotine to reveal the true colours beneath.
‘I just don’t see how this could be a copy,’ Dr Grosvenor declared, admiring the swirling paintstrokes. He couldn’t prove its authenticity, but he kept us guessing all the way.