I can reveal the exciting news that two production companies in the UK are seriously considering making TV documentaries about Wallace which would be broadcast next year as a 'response' to the many programmes about Darwin which the BBC and others are currently making to coincide with the Darwin anniversary celebrations of 2009.
I have long thought that the only television programme with any significant content about Wallace was one in Aubrey Manning's excellent series EARTH STORY, first broadcast on BBC2 in 1998. The part featuring Wallace is number 7, THE LIVING EARTH, and it can be seen on You Tube here:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UavZ8vpBKs
To my surprise I recently discovered that two other TV programmes featuring Wallace had been made - one for the BBC by Peter Crawford called THE FORGOTTEN VOYAGE, a 50 min dramatised documentary about Wallace's life made in 1983, and ARKS OF LIFE, part 2 of a series called WILD ISLANDS which was made in 1998 by North South Productions for Channel 4. I would be very interested to watch the first of these in particular as it is the only biography of Wallace made for TV so far (see http://www.petercrawford.co.uk/tvdrama.php). If anyone knows where I can obtain a copy then please let me know (blaberus1@ntlworld.com) - I have searched the Web to no avail. Note that in 2003 Barebone Films produced a docudrama called ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE: ONE IN A GENERATION, which is (or was) available on video from shops in Hertford, UK (the town where Wallace went to school). I have watched it but didn't rate it very highly because the story had too many inaccuracies for my liking.
NOTE (15/11/08): Another documentary about Wallace seems to have been made in 1997 for the "Worlds Apart" series (possibly made by LocateTV). It was called "The Man Who Wasn't Darwin". See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1096815/
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