Evening Standard

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young. “Lions are very abstract to us — we don’t encounter them in our everyday life,” she says. “But if you create a bond with one animal, that love extends to the whole species. You fall in love with a particular lion and then you fall in love with them all.”

The app is initially free but users can upgrade to a subscripti­on if they want more. Virry won a Bafta last November, and the app has become a hit in China, Russia and the US, as well as the UK.

So what next? “There’ll be something new from Kenya in the autumn. New cameras, new partners. It’s more than an app — it’s a lifestyle. Most of all we want to continue educating children — my dream is that every parent knows about Virry.”

Might it ever feature British animals too — showing life in a fox den, perhaps, or down a badger sett? “Absolutely. We weren’t specifical­ly focusing on Africa, we just found these places we fell in love with. It depends on finding a place [in the UK] we fall in love with.”

I ask her to pick her own favourite animal to watch but she struggles to narrow it down. “For a UK audience — since there are so many bird-lovers — I think they’d enjoy the flamingos. The best thing in the world for a bad mood is to watch them.”

But f o r he r i t ’s t he o r a ng ut a ns . “I didn’t know how tender they would be with each other. The mother cuddles and kisses the baby and if we put a box of food in there the mother will try it first to check it’s safe for the baby. It is so charming — you can feel the love through the screen.”

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