The Duke of Cambridge to attend the world premiere of Blue Planet II

On Wednesday, 27 September Prince William will join Sir David Attenborough and composer Hans Zimmer at the British Film Institute IMAX cinema in London for the world premiere screening of the BBC’s Blue Planet II.

The special screening aims to celebrate the show’s potential to inspire future generations of marine conservationists and will see school children from Lionel Primary School in Brentford in attendance alongside specially invited guests. The Duke of Cambridge will join the children in the cinema’s foyer before the screening as they explore interactive marine-themed learning activities and take part in experiential quizzes. Prince William will also see a live demonstration of the breathing apparatus used for underwater filming and some of the special technology which was used to film the series, such as the Megadome camera.

Prince William will then join the invited audience to watch the premiere of the Blue Planet II prequel as well as the opening episode. The five-minute series prequel will be globally launched and simulcast at midday on Thursday, 28 September and features a unique musical collaboration between Radiohead and Hans Zimmer. The first episode of the series will be broadcast on BBC One before the end of the year and promises to take viewers on a revelatory journey into our oceans. The episode will be 50 minutes in duration with an additional 10-minute ‘making of’ feature.

A generation after the original broadcast of The Blue Planet in 2001, the BBC returns to the watery depths for the new series, which is a culmination of four years’ work and 125 expeditions across 39 countries on every continent and across every ocean. As cutting-edge breakthroughs in science and technology continue to transform our knowledge of what goes on beneath the waves, Blue Planet II is set to reveal otherworldly places and extraordinary new animal behaviours in the final frontier.