Former Wildlife Television Presenter, Naturalist, Producer, Founder of Image Impact, BBC & Granada Television Wildlife Programme Creator

Nigel Marven’s fascination with the natural world began early. At eight years old he was already running a hamster colony, and by nine he was racing stick insects along his mother’s clothes line. As a teenager his interests expanded to larger and more unusual animals; he kept a caiman, a magpie and several boa constrictors at his parents’ house. He even rescued a freshwater eel that was destined to be turned into jelly and kept it in the family bathtub, moving it into a bucket whenever someone needed a bath. Family holidays in the Mediterranean became wildlife expeditions, with Nigel roaming the countryside carrying a pillowcase to collect snakes and lizards for study before releasing them back into the wild.

After finishing school, Nigel spent a year travelling across America, where he encountered hellbenders and amphiumas in their natural habitats. On returning to the UK, he moved to Bristol to study Botany and Zoology at university. Bristol proved to be the perfect place for him; it allowed him to study the natural world academically and also placed him in the centre of the wildlife filmmaking industry. While researching an MSc on the grazing interactions between limpets and diatoms, he got his first opportunity in television, working on a BBC programme called Galactic Garden, where he handled worms on camera and learned filmmaking techniques in the BBC Bristol macro studio.

His first full time television role came as a researcher on David Attenborough’s First Eden, a series about the Mediterranean. This was a major moment for Nigel, as Attenborough had long been one of his heroes. His experience with Mediterranean wildlife then led to a role as Assistant Producer on the television adaptation of Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals, filmed on the Greek island of Corfu. During filming, Nigel directed animal sequences including a famous fight between a gecko and a praying mantis, and worked with a wide range of animals used in the production.

Nigel continued working at the BBC for more than a decade, producing primetime wildlife programmes such as Incredible Journeys and Life of Birds. He later joined Granada Television, where he began appearing on screen as well as producing. He eventually founded his own production company, Image Impact, creating programmes shown worldwide, including Sea Monsters, Prehistoric Park, Animal Detectives, Ugly Animals, Walking With Dinosaurs, Bull Sharks, Nigel’s Wild Wild World and Rhinos.

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