Dr Michael Gunton

Doctor of Letters

Thursday 10 July 2025 - Orator: Professor Steve Simpson

Listen to the full oration and honorary speech on SoundCloud.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor,

Mike Gunton is the first Creative Director of the BBC Natural History Unit, the world’s largest production unit devoted to wildlife filmmaking, and also the Creative Director of Factual at the BBC. Both roles require Mike to serve as an ambassador for the BBC and BBC Worldwide, including as a fellow of the Royal Television Society, and he is tireless in his pursuit of creating new and exciting content to engage global audiences. Mike’s career spans over 40 years, with hundreds of credits, including Life, Galapagos, Africa, Shark, Life Story, Green Planet, and, of course, Planet Earth II and III (for which he has earned several BAFTAs and Emmys). 

But just for today, let’s take it back to the beginning, at least of the Bristol story. Coming from a very ordinary Hertfordshire comprehensive, Mike felt he was punching above his weight when he applied to the prestigious University of Bristol, but his unusual taxonomic knowledge of marine invertebrates so impressed the panel they surprised him with an offer, which he, thankfully, accepted. 

At the time, the now School of Biological Sciences was made up of two separate schools, Botany and Zoology. But not even two schools were sufficient to satisfy Mike’s enquiring mind, so he some of took classes in Geology too. This ambitious concoction meant that when it came to his examinations, the cover sheet instructed Zoology students to answer one set of questions, Botany students to answer a different set, combined Biology students to tackle a blended mix, and a certain Mr Gunton to attempt a unique combination that also included Geology. Thankfully this story is told just too late to have given our new graduates any ideas about personalised examinations, but this broad education will no doubt have served Mike well in producing the wonderful film Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur and groundbreaking series Prehistoric Planet, just two of the many wonderful collaborations between Sir David Attenborough and our honorary graduand over a 40-year partnership. 

Mike is a wonderful storyteller, as I am sure we are about to witness, and uses rich narratives to bring character, personality and emotion to natural history film, including the stunning portrayal of tribes and families of penguins, wolves, lions, tigers and chimpanzees in the series Dynasties, or the death-defying (and emotionally draining!) race for survival of the marine iguana hatchlings taking on the valley of the racer snakes in Planet Earth II. 

To tell stories to the world like never before, Mike is also forever in pursuit of creative and innovative ways to employ the latest technologies that connect us to nature. From the epic pack-hunting sequences filmed from helicopters and then drones, to the artistic use of timelapse to, quite literally, bend time to showcase the behaviour of plants, to thermal imaging cameras to reveal the hidden nocturnal lives of wolves in Alpine forests or leopards in human conurbations. Mike has taught literally billions of people around the world about the wonders of nature, generating global interest in the natural world and raising awareness with ever more urgency of the impacts of humans on our planet. 

I am quite sure that Mike’s invaluable contribution to the world of natural history filmmaking has deepened each and every one of our connections to nature and inspired many, including plenty on this stage as well as the real heroes of the moment – our fabulous troop, school, no pride of graduands – to pursue the degrees and careers that bring us all together for this momentous occasion. 

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I present to you Michael de La Roche Gunton as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa.