We fast-forward now, to Attenborough’s stint in charge of BBC Two. And then we fast-forward through it, to 1979’s Life on Earth. This one, of course, you know about. The most ambitious and expensive nature show of its time. Attenborough and his team filmed hundreds of species on a million-mile journey around the world. It was a blockbuster of a show, watched by 500 million people around the world. And it was smart too, never once underestimating its audience’s intelligence. This series, more than anything, is the reason why we’re here tonight.

Turns out the Zoo Quest theme tune had about 12 different false endings, too. Who knew?

More music now: Francisco Yglesia playing the Zoo Quest theme tune on Paraguayan harp. It’s very lovely, but also we are a third of the way through this show and we’ve still only covered Attenborough’s first series. There is a possibility that we still might be here in the middle of next week unless things pick up a bit.

Dimitriadis, meanwhile, is pointing a thermal imaging camera at the Albert Hall audience, and Benedict Cumberbatch specifically. I wonder if she’s being lined up as Attenborough’s replacement. She’s very good.

Chris Packham and Anna Dimitriadis have filled the sofa, to discuss what Zoo Quest meant to the British public at the time. They remind us that people hadn’t been abroad much back then, so Zoo Quest represented the first time that anyone had really seen the world. Also, as Packham points out, they made it with a wind-up camera.

What a hero he is, though. Never has anyone kidnapped an animal with such panache. Archive clips are interspersed with clips of Attenborough complaining that he made Zoo Quest for free. I love him so much.

We’re given a whistlestop tour of Attenborough’s early career. Sadly none of the knitting shows he apparently worked on have survived the ravages of time, but Zoo Quest has. This was Attenborough’s big breakthrough, and the BBC of 2026 does a very good of minimising the weirdness of a show where a guy goes abroad to kidnap animals for a zoo.

The dog passes it to an eagle, the eagle passes it to a hedgehog, who passes it to a swan and a fox and a seal and an owl and a deer. The message is clear: training and hiring an elaborate army of animals is quicker and more cost effective than the Royal Mail.

Also, let’s applaud the BBC for not making Paddington do any of that journey. The restraint!

Kirsty Young is explaining that people get a birthday card from the King on their 100th birthday. But this is David Attenborough, after all, a man who is several hundred times more beloved than anyone in the royal family. So instead he gets a handwritten note from the King, which the King narrates. It is put on a silver plate and carried to Attenborough in a dog’s mouth to the sound of Greatest Day by Take That. Am I drunk?

We move onto a chat show segment, with Young hanging out on an armchair next to an empty sofa. Who’s on first? Nobody! Because here’s the guy from Bastille to sing Pompeii. This is either because it featured in Planet Earth III, or because according to Wikipedia ‘the song was used for an advert by EE in January 2020 as part of their 5G promotion.’ Who could possibly say which it is.

We begin with a recap of Attenborough’s last decade, in which he has made 18 different shows. He’s been in a hot air balloon. He travelled around the world. He’s led the way against plastic pollution in the oceans. He’s grabbed onto cacti. He’s been bungee jumping. He poked a plant with a stick. One of these things is a lie.

Kirsty Young has now safely made it inside the Albert Hall. It is packed with 5,000 people, who all give a standing ovation to Sir David Attenborough. Attenborough is standing next to Prince William, and he honestly looks 30 years younger than he actually is. The standing ovation goes on forever, as it should.

Kirsty Young starts the show, standing outside the Albert Hall accompanied by giant animal puppets. For just a moment it looks like this might be some Cirque du Soleil nonsense, but then comes Sir David’s voice telling us what an honour his career has been and, well, this might be a bit of a weepy one.

Thank god that’s over. Now the real show can begin.

By the way, I take back everything I said about this being a celebration of television. This is because, while I wait for the show to start, I’m having to watch Question Time, and it’s making me want to kick a hole in my television.

While we wait for the show to begin, allow me to offer you some links to some of our recent David Attenborough coverage.

Here’s our tribute to the man’s birthday, hilariously including the insinuation that he probably would have just preferred to stay at home today

A very lovely series of recollections about Attenborough

Here’s Jack Seale’s review of Making Life on Earth, the documentary on Attenborough’s groundbreaking 1979 natural history series

Jess Harwood’s cartoon

Ben Jennings’s cartoon

And finally, the article that has permanently altered my iPlayer algorithm: David Attenborough’s 100 greatest moments

I’m sure the point will be made during the course of the next couple of hours, but it’s important to remember that David Attenborough is more than just a television presenter. He is television. His first screen credit came in the mid-1950s, when the rules of the medium had yet to solidify, and is therefore responsible for a lot of the grammar the form still uses to this day.

As controller of BBC Two he was responsible for commissioning Monty Python, The Ascent of Man and The Old Grey Whistle Test. He spearheaded the introduction of colour television in the UK. He grew as television grew and, as it began to contract, he moved elsewhere; to satellite, to streaming, to cinema. As much as tonight is a celebration of a genuinely remarkable man, it should therefore also be a celebration of the medium he forged in his own image.

Welcome one and all to The Guardian’s liveblog of David Attenborough’s 100 Years on Planet Earth. You will be pleased to know, as I certainly am, that this is not a century-long liveblog. Instead it exists to cover the 90-minute Albert Hall spectacular that BBC One is airing tonight.

You may already be aware that today is Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday, and so this is an extremely fitting tribute. Our greatest living national treasure is the subject of what’s being billed as “a journey of exploration and discovery through the prism of Sir David’s extraordinary life and career.” In short, there will be music, there will be film, there will be recollections and, if we’re lucky, there will be cake.

The programme starts on BBC One at 8:30pm. Join me back here for the start or, if you happen to be unusually fond of preambles, stick around here. It should be a fitting celebration for such a universally beloved figure.