Tried & tested

BRITAIN’S HIDDEN FISHES, BY JACK PERKS

Reviewed by: Joshua Pickett

Price: Last screening is free, with requested donations

I’ve pondered for a long time what hold our seas, rivers and lakes have over us. What draws us to them, time and time again? For each of us, I’m sure the answer is a little different, but the instigator for me was the mystery. Despite covering over 70% of the planet’s surface, these environments are supremely private places; not knowing what lies beneath has always excited me.

When I went to see a screening of Britain’s Hidden Fishes in Falmouth, Cornwall, some of that secrecy was uncovered. I realised the reality was far more captivating than I imagined.

Britain’s Hidden Fishes is a crowdfunded documentary film directed by professional ‘fish twitcher’ Jack Perks, who aimed to showcase British marine and freshwater fishes as never seen before. Raising the £30,000 needed to produce the film (a paltry sum compared to the budgets of most documentaries), it still matches its contemporaries in quality. What sets this apart from other documentaries is that fishes are not an accident or afterthought—they are the star of the show.

Televisions have accustomed us to sympathising with furry animals in wildlife documentaries, but who among us have considered the tribulations of the twaite shad? One of over 40 species featured in Jack’s film, this migratory fish is endangered in Britain, battling to reach its spawning grounds upstream in the Severn, thanks to the hazards of man-made obstacles. To reach its goal, the shad needs to wait for the tide to rise above lowland dams, resulting in the shoals bottlenecking in small, exposed areas—easy pickings for predators.

With Jeremy Wade narrating, scenes like this play out, the gravitas of his voice combined with a musical score that drives the imagery home.

Boasting an award-winning camera crew and over an hour of runtime, Britain’s Hidden Fishes showcases the incredible journeys fishes make, and never-before-seen behaviour. Chalk streams, rivers, rock pools, canals, estuaries; this film has it all. Bitterling laying their eggs inside of live mussels, impatient grayling rummaging for early mayfly, and thick-lipped mullet having a spa day are among some of the more memorable moments.

There’s an implicit environmental subtext, too, with the film showing how warming oceans are affecting our native fishes. Cold water species like cod are moving further north, and increasing numbers of Mediterran