James Blunt cuts a dashing figure as he joins his wife Sofia at star-studded premiere for David Attenborough's new series

Daily Mail​

07-05-2025

James Blunt cut a dashing figure as he joined his wife at a star-studded premiere for David Attenborough 's brand new series on Tuesday night.
A host of celebrities gathered at The Pelican in Notting Hill before heading to London's Royal Festival Hall for the main event, sponsored by People's Postcode Lottery.
A-listers got together to celebrate the legendary environmentalist, 98, and his latest documentary Ocean, which releases on his 99th birthday on Thursday.
You're Beautiful singer James, 51, dressed up for the glitzy event in a sharp black tuxedo with a white shirt, adding some black shoes and a black bowtie.
He put a loving arm around his wife Sofia Wellesley, 41, who looked nothing short of sensational on the red carpet wearing a royal blue one shoulder maxi dress.
The socialite teamed the item with a pair of gold platform heels and a gold Yves Saint Laurent envelope bag, adding gold hooped earrings with a pearl drop as well as gold chain bracelets.
James's appearance comes after it was reported the musician is preparing to launch his own range of alcoholic beverages having gone into business with music executive Nick Gatfield and drinks expert Neil Ridley, investing in their firm, Ten Four Drinks.
A source revealed: 'James has gone into business with Ten Four, who create and market bespoke booze. He has a real passion for the drinks trade and runs his businesses alongside making music and touring.
'James has put money into the brand and is looking forward to expanding the business with his partners. He has designs on his own booze too and his pub, The Fox and Pheasant in Chelsea, would stock it.'
The source added that James has a huge following and the celebrity drinks market is 'massive', so he's unlikely to struggle selling his own line.
Ten Four Drinks' website is set to launch soon, and its mission statement says it 'specialises in creating and managing beverage brands for the world's greatest talent'.
James and Sofia led a host of stars at Sir David's event, including Cara Delevingne who chose a racy look.
The supermodel, 32, who never fails to make a statement, put on a very risqué display in the sexy mesh dress.
Joining the actress and model at the celebration was her pregnant sister Poppy and pal Georgia May Jagger.
He put a loving arm around his wife Sofia Wellesley, 41, who looked nothing short of sensational on the red carpet wearing a royal blue one shoulder maxi dress
Sir David's new film is the 'greatest message he's ever told', says its producer.
Ocean will see David delve further than ever before into the 'most important place on earth' - its oceans.
After being significantly damaged by fishing and pollution, the film argues the sea is 'at a crossroads', but 'it can bounce back'.
Toby Nowlan, the movie's producer, said: 'This is not about seeing brand new natural history behaviours. This is the greatest message he's ever told.'
Never-seen-before graphic footage of the damage that bottom trawling - a common fishing practice around the world - has done to the seabed is said to feature in the film.
A host of celebrities gathered at The Pelican in Notting Hill before heading to London's Royal Festival Hall for the main event, including Poppy Delevingne
A-listers got together to celebrate the legendary environmentalist, 98, and his latest documentary which releases on his 99th birthday on Thursday (pictured with King Charles II)
The pictures will display how the chain that trawlers drag behind them scours the seafloor, forcing the creatures it disturbs into the net behind.
The process also releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the sea, something which contributes to global warming.
Sir David will examine inspirational stories of ocean recovery in areas where destructive fishing is banned - such as the Isle of Arran, Scotland and Hawaii.
The broadcasting icon contends that 'the ocean can recover faster than we can ever imagine'.
But 'we are running out of time', says Attenborough, who candidly admitted he may not be around to see our oceans saved as he 'nears the end of his life'.
During the heartbreaking admission in the film's trailer, he said: 'When I first saw the sea as a young boy, it was thought of as a vast wilderness to be tamed and mastered for the benefit of humanity.
'Now, as I approach the end of my life, we know the opposite is true. After living for nearly a hundred years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea.'
He added: 'Today, it is in such poor health I would find it hard not to lose hope were it not for the most remarkable discovery of all.'
Sir David is hugely popular for narrating the successful Planet Earth series [pictured, an image from Planet Earth III] as well as a host of other documentaries
'If we save the sea, we save our world. After a lifetime of filming our planet, I'm sure nothing is more important.'
Sir David further made a reference to his years on this earth as he opened up about the extraordinary ocean discoveries over the decades and how important it is to preserve the health of the oceans.
He said: 'My lifetime has coincided with the great age of ocean discovery. Over the last hundred years, scientists and explorers have revealed remarkable new species, epic migrations and dazzling, complex ecosystems beyond anything I could have imagined as a young man.
'In this film, we share some of those wonderful discoveries, uncover why our ocean is in such poor health, and, perhaps most importantly, show how it can be restored to health. This could be the moment of change.
'Nearly every country on Earth has just agreed, on paper, to achieve this bare minimum and protect a third of the ocean.
'Together, we now face the challenge of making it happen.'
Sir David Attenborough has given us the best gift of all with his new documentary Ocean, writes BRIAN VINER
Ocean with David Attenborough (PG, 95 mins)
Rating:
Sir David Attenborough turns 99 on Thursday and the best birthday present we can collectively give the great man is by going to the cinema to see his powerful new feature-length documentary, Ocean.
The film has its world premiere tonight at the Royal Festival Hall: an apt venue in a week of festivities commemorating VE Day 80 years ago.
But while in every news bulletin his surviving contemporaries are being asked to talk about the past, Attenborough wants only to look ahead. The older he gets, the more invested he seems to be in the future.
In a way, Ocean unfolds like a party political broadcast on behalf of the planet. Attenborough stresses that we can still counter the effects of climate change and diminishing biodiversity – and the key lies below the waves.
Humanity's potential salvation, improbable as it sounds, rests with the vast armies of ocean plankton, 'the most abundant animal on earth'. They absorb about a third of all carbon dioxide emissions and produce more oxygen than all the world's trees combined.
But as in all the best cinematic thrillers, Ocean dangles a lifeline while threatening to snatch it away. There's a villain in this film.
It's the deep-sea fishing industry, and in particular those enormous trawlers and dredgers that scrape all living things off the ocean bed. An entire eco-system is then boiled and processed to produce health supplements and pet food. And 'all on board ship,' adds Attenborough, with the nearest he ever gets to a sneer.
As always, his mighty age and experience, combined with that air of almost papal benevolence, imbue his every pronouncement with complete authority.
When he declares that our understanding of the sub-oceanic world has been transformed in his lifetime, there is supporting black-and-white footage of him scuba-diving off the Great Barrier Reef in 1957, when he was already in his 30s and so taken aback by the spectacle 'that I forgot, momentarily, to breathe'.
Yet this film is not typical of his astonishing TV series, the likes of Planet Earth and the Blue Planet.
Ocean is full of spectacular underwater camerawork (co-directors Toby Nowlan, Colin Butfield and Keith Scholey all deserve a name-check, and Prince Albert of Monaco, eye-catchingly, is among the executive producers), but unlike most Attenborough documentaries it does not linger on pouncing predators or mysterious mating rituals.
Only occasionally, his customary enthusiasm undimmed, does he introduce us to fascinating creatures. For instance to the peacock mantis shrimp, with its fabulously complex eyes that can detect UV light and rotate independently like angle-poise lamps.
Or to boxer crabs, which for self-defence use clumps of venomous anemones as gloves, and look so much like pugilists limbering up for a fight that really there should be a promoter, a crustacean Frank Warren, standing just behind them.
On the whole, however, everything we see is to bolster Attenborough's passionate message, namely that if the world's nations, meeting next month at the UN Ocean Conference, can agree to create enough fully protected marine reserves, then humankind might be on to a winner.
What fills him with hope, he explains, is the increasing evidence that our seas and oceans and everything in them can recover more quickly than previously he dared to think.
The few areas where intensive trawler-fishing has been stopped now positively overflow with marine life, and there's a tiny protected zone of the Mediterranean, the most over-fished of all waters, which suggests even that can be reclaimed.
Ocean is full of spectacular underwater camerawork, but unlike most Attenborough documentaries it does not linger on pouncing predators or mysterious mating rituals
None of this, he is keen to point out, imperils the fishing industry. It can continue to thrive, but must be better regulated.
In the meantime, populations of the giant black sea bass, once thought extinct, have rebounded. And nothing feeds Attenborough's optimism like the fate of the whale.
Hunted virtually to extinction before commercial whaling was banned in 1986 – with almost three million killed in the 20th century alone - almost every species has made an astonishing comeback.
He vividly recalls thinking that it was curtains for the blue whale. But the largest animal ever to have existed has bounced back, and it's a heck of a bounce.
There are blue whales being born today that will likely live for more than 100 years. Let us all hope that Attenborough matches and exceeds that tally. I fancy he still has plenty more to say.