Nigel Marven | |
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 Nigel Marven at theWebosaurs official launch in Dallas (2009) | |
| Born | (1960-11-27)27 November 1960 (age 64) Barnet,Hertfordshire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1982–present |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | Nigel Marven |
Nigel Alan Marven (born 27 November 1960) is a British wildlife TV presenter, naturalist, conservationist, author, and television producer. He is best known as presenter of the BBC miniseriesChased by Dinosaurs, its sequel,Sea Monsters, as well as the ITV miniseriesPrehistoric Park. He is also known[1] for his unorthodox, spontaneous, and daring style of presenting wildlife documentaries as well as for including factual knowledge in the proceedings.
Marven was born inBarnet but grew up inSt. Albans. As a child he loved animals. His first pet was ahamster called Hummy. He keptstick insects,boa constrictors, and even aneel in a bath. When he was 15, he also owned youngspectacled caiman. He studiedbotany andzoology[2] at theUniversity of Bristol until the age of 22 when he left to begin his career at theBBC Natural History Unit inBristol.
From 1982 to the mid-1990s, Marven worked as a wildlife documentary researcher for such programmes asThe First Eden andMy Family and Other Animals. He then went on to begin producing nature documentary series, one of the first beingRealms of the Russian Bear in 1992. He enjoyed a 12-year professional collaboration with thenatural historianDavid Attenborough, whom he holds in high esteem. In 1998, he moved toITV where he was asked to present wildlife documentaries as well as produce them.
In his first television series for ITV,Giants, he swam with agreat white shark without the protection of acage. Other scenes included agoliath birdeater spider, arguably the largestspider in the world, walking over his face, and Marven grappling a 15-foot (4.6 m)African rock python deep in its underground lair. This style of presenting has won him many viewers and to date[when?] he has presented more than 50 wildlife programs and series for television.
In 2000, Marven became the host of the hit annualDiscovery Channel eventShark Week, and held this role for three years. In 2002, theImpossible Pictures production company asked Marven to present theWalking with Dinosaurs Special episodes "The Giant Claw" and "Land of Giants", which premiered on BBC One to nearly seven million viewers in late 2002. In 2003, Marven also hosted a sequel miniseries,Sea Monsters – A Walking with Dinosaurs Trilogy, which was an even bigger success. He then continued his partnership with Impossible Pictures as the studio moved on to ITV, beginning withPrehistoric Park in 2006, a fictional series about travelling back in time to rescue examples of extinct creatures such asTyrannosaurus, thewoolly mammoth,Arthropleura, and others. In his final appearance for Impossible Pictures, Marven was featured as himself in season 3, episode 4 of the ITV action drama seriesPrimeval, which aired in 2009. He is seen playing with a babyVelociraptor, before encountering aGiganotosaurus, which, it is implied, eats him off-screen.
In addition to being presenter for Impossible Pictures's time-travelling programmes, Marven also founded his own independent company Image Impact in 2003, and started producing his own wildlife films, including a few one-hour specials and then miniseries, such asPenguin Safari andPanda Adventure, both which aired on Channel 5 and Animal Planet. In 2007, he also worked with Tigress Productions which resulted in his showsShark Island andJaguar Adventure.
In the first half of the 2010s, Nigel produced nature documentaries such asUntamed China,Wild Colombia,Whale Adventure andNigel Marven's Cruise Ship Adventures, the latter which was broadcast in May and June 2015 onWatch.
During the summer of 2014, Eden Channel in the UK started a new competition for aspiring wildlife filmmakers calledEden Shorts. The task was to make one-minute videos with animals, with the best ones to be shown on TV. Nigel Marven, along withMichaela Strachan, were judges. Nigel has also made some short how-to-guides, available through Eden Channel's website. In May 2015, Eden premiered a film calledEden Shorts: From Lens to Screen presented by Marven. In the show, he meets competition finalists and reveals techniques used to shoot their videos.
One of his more recent successes,Ten Deadliest Snakes, was first broadcast onAnimal Planet in the United States in spring 2014, and onEden in the UK in June of the same year. Season 2 ofTen Deadliest Snakes premiered in autumn 2015 on Eden, while season 3 began airing on 5 January 2017 onNat Geo Wild in the UK. Highlights ofTen Deadliest Snakes included, among others, visitingsea krait caves inSouth China Sea, handlingblack mamba in South Africa, snake-hunting with Steve Irwin's sonRobert in thebillabongs ofAustralia Zoo and visiting the Brazilian island ofQueimada Grande, home of thegolden lancehead, with a scientific expedition.
In January 2018, Nigel'sUntamed Philippines was screened on Nat Geo Wild in the United States. The presenter-led version of this documentary calledWild Philippines with Nigel Marven aired onViasat Nature in Europe in March and April 2018 and on Animal Planet India in June 2018, with the American TV channelPBS airing the series in late summer 2019.
As of November 2022, Nigel Marven's newest nature series isWild Central America, a documentary miniseries consisting of four episodes, each looking at wildlife of a different Central American country, with focus on Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama. WhileWild Honduras premiered on Viasat Nature in central and eastern Europe in summer 2019, the rest of the series was first broadcast on the same channel in late spring and summer 2020. The presenter-less version ofWild Costa Rica andWild Guatemala premiered on Nat Geo Wild in February 2020.
In September 2020, Blue Meridian and Crytivo released the official trailer for the video gamePrehistoric Kingdom, featuring Marven as narrator.[3] On 30 September, the day after the trailer's release, the creative team behind the game confirmed in a live stream that they had approached Marven to narrate the trailer after they saw that he followed the game's official page on Twitter.[4] In May 2021, he confirmed on his Twitter account that he was recording voice-over for the game.[5] Marven also voiced the Early Access Trailer for the game, which was released on 21 April 2022.[6] The game, featuring Marven's voiceover commentary, was released on 27 April 2022.
In July 2021, Minecraft addon creatorCompyCraft released a trailer for aMinecraft dinosaur expansion pack, which featured Marven's voiceover.[7] The project was namedThe Giant Dinosaur Adventure, and was confirmed to be featuring Marven's character inside the game itself.The Giant Dinosaur Adventure later released on 27 September 2022 on the in-game Minecraft store.[8]
Marven narrated the upcoming independent documentary projectForgotten Bloodlines: Agate, which will take place during the Miocene epoch.[9] It was originally slated for release in 2022 but was later pushed to a yet-to-be-announced date.[10]
In 2022, Marven partnered with MagellanTV to produce a one-hour documentary titledWild El Salvador — In the Shadow of the Volcanoes with Nigel Marven.[11] The film was released on 2 March 2023 as part of MagellanTV's celebration of World Wildlife Day.[12]
Marven's most recent project is a one-hour documentary film titledWild Slovakia with Nigel Marven, set to premiere on 1 January 2024 on the SlovakRSTV channel Dvojka.[13] It was filmed throughout 2022 and 2023 by a British-Slovak filmmaking team.
Marven was bitten by a venomousgreen pit viper in theEast Malaysian state ofSabah in the summer of 2014 during filming of the first episode of the showEating Wild. The snake bit him on the thumb but did not inject muchvenom, so Marven spent only six hours in the hospital until he had recovered.[14] He has also had a few other very dangerous encounters with venomoussnakes. While he was producing the BBC filmThe Serpent's Embrace in the 1980s, aspitting cobra sprayed its venom into his eyes. He spent two to three days in hospital, though luckily the venom did not enter his blood. A similar encounter happened in December 2008 while Marven was making a short film aboutblack-necked spitting cobras forWebosaurs. Though he wore a mask, the cobra venom landed in his hair, then mixed with sweat and ran into his eyes, so he stopped the filming until next morning. In his 2008 seriesJaguar Adventure he was bitten by a mildly toxic venomousfalse water cobra. His hand swelled up within ten minutes, but there were no other harmful effects.
In his 2004nature documentaryBull Shark: World's Deadliest Shark, Marven was in theBahamas and stood with shark expert Erich Ritter in the water surrounded bysharks. During the filming, abull shark attacked Ritter's leg and gave him a 30-centimetre (12 in) bite to his calf. Marven still recalls it as one of the most dangerous moments in his career.[15]
In 2005,[16] while filming theIndian rhinoceros inKaziranga National Park, Marven and his crew unknowingly got too close to a female rhinoceros with a small calf; the mother rhinoceros charged them, but since they were riding in a truck, they were able to outdistance her. Marven later said that this experience was the most exciting moment in his entire film-making career.
In the third episode of his 2012 seriesWild Colombia, Marven was bitten on his nose by a non-venomousCentral American tree boa, causing blood to cover his face. A similar encounter happened in his 2013 showTen Deadliest Snakes: China with aking ratsnake. Likewise, inTen Deadliest Snakes: Brazil from 2017, he got bitten on the nose by a non-venomousgreen vine snake.
Marven ran the 2008London marathon in 4 hours and 4 minutes to try to raise £20,000 for theWhale and Dolphin Conservation Society UK.[17]
He is a Panda Ambassador forChengdu Panda Base inSichuan Province, China. He is also a patron ofThe Great Fen Project for restoring vital wildlife habitat,Healthy Planet through which he adopted a plot of land for helping to create new wildlife habitats, and Vale Wildlife Hospital, company that treats injured wildlife inGloucestershire, England. He is also a patron of the ORCA organization, which protects whales and dolphins in European waters.[18]
Many of his TV wildlife programmes also seek to highlight the conservation of nature and endangered species. For example, his seriesPanda Adventure provides a look at thegiant panda breeding programs at the Chengdu Panda Base and at theSan Diego Zoo inSan Diego,California, in the United States. In the third episode of Season 3 ofTen Deadliest Snakes, he covered theKemp's ridley sea turtle conservation project inTamaulipas,Mexico.
In 2016, Marven produced and narrated a short film featuring the work of theBlack Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit, which is fighting against rhinocerospoaching inSouth Africa. The film is available to watch via theInternet and is presented by animal campaignerAnneka Svenska.[19]
Marven was nominated for aBAFTA TV Award in 2000 for Best Features for his first presenter-led series,Giants.[20]
In 2015, he was nominated for the Donald Gosling Award by Maritime Media Awards for his seriesNigel Marven's Cruise Ship Adventures.[21]
In 2016, he received an award from theCruise Lines International Association.[22]
In 2022, a species ofCretaceousspathiopterygidwasp described by Maxime Santer and his colleagues was namedDiameneura marveni in honor of Marven "for his appearances in severalpalaeontology documentaries".[23] In 2024, anOligocene-agedfossilthylacine relative,Ngamalacinus nigelmarveni, was named after Marven "for his lifetime dedication to inspiring young paleontologists through his unique and daring style of presenting documentaries on ancient life."[24]
Marven married Jenny Hull in September 1996, but they separated four years later. Marven fathered Jane Braham's son Theo, but went on to marry Gillian Impey on 1 May 2004. They also have a child. During filming ofThe Wright Stuff on 14 July 2017 Marven announced that he was going through his second divorce.[25] His children are one son Theo and daughter Eleonora.
During a simulateddinosaur encounter in the third episode ofPrehistoric Park, Marven states that likeIncisivosaurus, he is avegetarian. Throughout the series he applies the same term to naturallyherbivorous animals. In the second episode of theUntamed China series, he says the team cooked vegetarian food especially for him. Marven confirms he is a vegetarian on his official website by stating that theperegrine falcon is his favourite animal and that he would love to be such abird, but because he is a vegetarian eating rawpigeon would make that hard.[26] InPanda Adventure, Marven states that he is "usuallyteetotal" when having a celebratory drink with a team of Chinese trackers who led him to see giant pandas close-up in the wild.
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