It’s 1 April 1984, and lead presenter Esther Rantzen is introducing the closing segment of BBC1’s Sunday night magazine programme, That’s Life.
“The Lirpa Loof…” she begins, as the studio audience listen attentively. “The little Tibetan animal with a talent for mimicking other animals. We read about him when he came to London Zoo six months ago, when the Chinese gave him to us. But this week he has actually been on show there, for the first time since he was allowed out of quarantine…”
As usual, the show that evening has effortlessly combined serious reportage with splendidly light-hearted fare. It has looked at the difficulties faced by disabled people in applying for the government’s mobility allowance; it has also taken to the streets to offer hedgehog-flavoured crisps to unsuspecting members of the London public. Only two minutes earlier, co-presenter Bill Buckley has sung a version of ‘Underneath The Arches’ with a disco-dancing pensioner called George. However, there has been little to suggest that the final 10 minutes of the programme will be devoted to one of the greatest and most elaborate cryptozoological hoaxes in TV history.
Reporter Gavin Campbell has been despatched to London Zoo. In a pre-filmed location report, we see him spending an extraordinary day with the Lirpa Loof itself. And the nature of the beast? Well, it appears to be a creature previously unseen on British TV. Or, indeed, anywhere else. It’s a hairy, pot-bellied biped standing around four feet tall – although, on our first sighting, it is sedated on a table, undergoing a medical examination from a team of furrowed-browed vets. The report throughout is played with admirably straight faces, and only closer inspection of the creature’s name gives the slightest hint that more mischievous forces are at work. It does, of course, read ‘April Fool’ backwards.
