ABC1 Website (Australia) – 23rd December, 2011

Australian fans will get the chance to see Richard narrate The History Of Safari on ABC1 on Monday, 2nd January 2012.

In this two-part series, Swaziland-born actor Richard E. Grant traces the safari experience in East Africa from its roots in the Arab slave trade through the decadent era of the big game hunters to its transformation into modern eco-tourism.

Along the way he discovers how the history of safari is also the story of the troubled economic development of East Africa.

The dramatic landscape is home to a rich variety of wild creatures but this amazing natural resource has proved to be both a blessing and a curse.

The History of Safari shows how, for 100 years, the region drew big game hunters looking for adventure and riches. Ironically, as ivory traders and trophy hunters decimated Africa’s wildlife, they also introduced the first conservation rules in order to protect their ‘sport’.

These often larger-than-life characters inspired novels and films, encouraging figures like Theodore Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill and the British Royal family, to travel to East Africa to bag the ‘big five’ – lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino and leopard. Now taking the form of expensive eco-tours rather than hunting trips, the modern safari continues to drive the economies of countries like Tanzania and Kenya.

Richard learns that, ultimately, the history of safari reflects our attitudes to big game, travel, colonial inheritance and Africa itself.

As stated earlier, Part one airs at 8:30pm, Monday, January 2 on ABC1