PERCY SMITH THE QUIET REVOLUTIONARY

In 1995, the David Attenboroughwritten and fronted television series The Private Life of Plants aired. It was a six-part study of the lifecycle and behaviour of plants from around the world, as shown through extensive timelapse sequences. The series was another feather in Attenborough’s already feather-laden cap, winning both international acclaim and a much-vaunted Peabody Award.

But the seeds of the series were sown 65 years earlier by a short black-and-white film called The Strangler, which showed how a parasitic vine called a dodder entwines and smothers other plants. With its revolutionary embrace of timelapse techniques (which its director called ‘time magnification’), it is a clear antecedent to The Private Life of Plants. Its director was the pioneering natural history filmmaker Percy Smith.

As pioneers go, Smith (sometimes known by his full name, Frank Percy Smith) cut