Philippa Forrester

Philippa is undoubtedly one of the UK’s best loved natural history and science presenters and top TV personality. Philippa’s mix of specialisms has allowed her to present some of the biggest shows to have graced the UK in the past three decades. She started out at CBBC, moving on to present Tomorrow’s World, Robot Wars, Crufts, Barking Mad, Clever Critters and The Heaven & Earth Show to name but a few! These presenting roles have always been strengthened by Philippa’s ability and versatility across live broadcasts. Philippa anchored Crufts for four years and covered the Queen’s Jubilee Celebrations. She was the co-presenter with Michael Burke on Total Eclipse, which received the highest ever viewing figures for a daytime programme, and she presented the Heaven & Earth Show for over two years on the Sunday morning slot on BBC1.

In the early days of her career, Philippa could be found presenting alongside Philip Schofield and Zoe Ball on Children’s BBC. From there, she moved onto presenting Tomorrow’s World for seven years with Peter Snow. In 1998, she presented Robot Wars with Jeremy Clarkson, followed by Craig Charles in 2002.

Philippa is passionate about all aspects of the natural world and gained a 1st Class Honors Degree in Ecology and Conservation. She has worked across a multitude of wildlife and pet programmes for the BBC Natural History Unit and BBC Popular Factual. In 2002, Philippa produced and appeared in the observational documentary series My Halcyon River. This soon became the Radio Times most requested repeat of the year and resulted in a four-part BBC1 series Halcyon River Diaries. Philippa presented Making Animal Babies, which was a wildlife/science combo show on BBC1 that was the top factual show of the week and even out rated Planet Earth. She presented and produced Saving Grace for Animal Planet, which documented the lives of two otters, and co-presented Harvest on BBC2 with Greg Wallace, which followed farmers through their most critical few working weeks.

In 2018, Philippa decided to speak out about the difficult medical issues her son was facing in hopes of raising awareness for The Brain Tumour Charity. Philippa has always kept charity very close to her heart, and has previously worked with Tiggywinkles, The Seahorse Trust, Avon Wildlife Trust, WWT, Woodland Trust, IOSF and RSPB.