COLOURS OF SUCCESS

The Whale in the Living Room, by John Ruthven

I N A MONTH packed with excellent new diving-related books, but most of them to file under “reference”, this one stands out as my favourite read.

John Ruthven is a diver and wildlife documentary producer, the only one to have worked on both Blue Planet and Blue Planet II, and responsible for some highly memorable sequences.

He wrote and produced that BAFTA award-winning must-see TV moment of the whale mother with her dead calf that raised questions in the Commons the next day, and helped to shift public awareness of plastics pollution at sea.

He has made some 50 films for the BBC, Discovery (Shark Week), NatGeo and PBS, and won an Emmy in 2015 for producing and directing Mysteries of the Coral Canyon, set in Fakarava Atoll in French Polynesia.

Ruthven has a lot to say about marine life and the art of filming it as reflected through his experiences, and he says it in an engaging manner that wafts you pleasurably through the pages like a warm current.

My favourite chapters are those in which he slips and slides freely from one subject to another.

They put me in mind of those dives where you’re constantly diverted by competing attractions, maybe critters, a small wreck or the behaviour of other divers, before a giant ray suddenly makes an appearance. It’s unplanned and unforgettable.

In the later chapters Ruthven tends to stick more closely to his theme, whether that’s filming blue whales with David Attenborough or overcoming the risk of boring viewers with environmental messaging.

The writing is always colourful, and in fact colour is used to define the various environments Ruthven has recorded, from Orange Seas (coral reefs) to Green Planet (kelp forest), Brown Planet (coastal areas) and lots of open-water action in the Big Blue.

The book title of course reflects the film-maker’s mission to convey the underwater world meaningfully via TV screens, and the author has played his part in raising the bar precariously high, especially as budgets dwindle.