Easter Special
Paul O’Grady’s Great Elephant Adventure Easter Day 8.00pm ITV1
Paul O’Grady’s love of animals was clear for all to see in his final TV project, as his friend and colleague Clare Barton recalls
I’ve given them a tin of salmon and asked the staff to keep an eye on ’em for me.” Just three hours after arriving in Laos, Paul O’Grady had tracked down two tiny stray kittens roaming the hotel gardens. His innate animal radar – one that supports any creature in need – was in full swing.
This unquestionable love of animals had taken us to South East Asia. Paul wanted to highlight the plight of elephants, which fascinated him throughout his life. Little did we know that this would be the last TV series Paul would flm before his death last year. But in hindsight, it was fitting that his final shoot was in the sunshine, doing something he adored. His love for, and connection with, these majestic beasts bursts through the screen.
Great Elephant Adventure was a long time in the making. In February 2020, on the eve of Paul’s planned flight to Bangkok, the shoot was abandoned because of the pandemic. Paul swapped Hua Hin for Hever Castle to film Great British Escape instead. Nearly three years later than scheduled, in December 2022, we fnally flew out to Laos. On location for a month, Paul visited elephants in the rescue homes and sanctuaries of Thailand and Laos. He travelled from the Mekong river and the Laotian jungle to the temples of Chiang Mai and beaches of southern Thailand.
Always much more than just a TV presenter, Paul got stuck in. He prepared food, fed and weighed the elephants and even made their bedding. The Asian elephant population has roughly halved over the past 60 years, mainly because of habitat loss, the illegal wildlife trade and conflict between humans and wildlife. Many of the elephants we met had been put to work in the logging industry. When they grew older, despite their injuries, they were forced to ferry tourists around and perform tricks for them.
Paul wanted to explore what is being done to help this endangered species. His care and compassion for these animals shines through our two-part documentary. We see him bathing a 70-yearold arthritic elephant that was barely able to walk, and tending to another with burn wounds, inflicted by fre when it was made to stand on its hind legs for tourists.
One of my abiding memories is of Paul encircled by a herd of excited mature elephants, mud splattered on his face and clothes, laughing as he was almost knocked to the ground, before being given an elephant’s tail hug. “This is heaven!” he exclaims.
At Boon Lott’s Animal Sanctuary, Paul loved training to
