The presenters: Neil Oliver, Chris Packham, Dr Shini Somara and Andy Torbet

Neil qualified as an archaeologist in 1988. His fieldwork experience covered everything from the early Stone Age in Scotland to the examination of World War Two coastal fortifications of Kent and Northern France.

BBC Two’s Two Men in a Trench saw Neil and his friend Tony Pollard visit historic British battlefields and recreate the battle using state-of-the-art technology.

Following this, in 2005, Neil joined the team on the BBC Two series Coast. The programme looks at both the natural and social history of the British coastline.

It was the landmark documentary series A History of Scotland in 2008 where his passion for Scotland emerged, leading to many more explorations of the UK on screen.

In 2012 Neil presented Vikings - a 3-part search for the truth about the Nordic seafarers.

As part of the BBC’s World War One centenary season, Neil presented The Machine Gun and Skye’s Band of Brothers, examining the use of the Maxim machine gun and the legacy it left on Hebridean community, and contributed to the guide to World War One propaganda.

Chris was born in Southampton in 1961 and from a young age was fascinated by animals which resulted in his large collections of reptiles, birds of prey, foxes, badgers, squirrels and more!

As a young scientist he studied Kestrels, Shrews and Badgers in his teens and undergraduate days at the Zoology department of Southampton University.

He began taking still photographs and trained as a wildlife film cameraman, but the camerawork gave way to presenting.

He began with the award winning Really Wild Show in 1986 and has been presenting ever since. Credits include BBC Two’s Springwatch, Autumnwatch, and Winterwatch, Operation Iceberg, Secrets of our Living Planet and many more.

Earlier in 2016 he was made honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Southampton where he had graduated 30 years before.

Chris has travelled widely and explored many habitats from Antarctic Islands, rain forests, deserts, the Everest range and the deep oceans. He is a sucker for Archaeology and likes to holiday amongst ruins.

Shini translates the complex world of cutting-edge science and tech into engaging television, as seen on BBC One’s three-part series Tomorrow’s Food which she presented with Dara Ó Briain.

She has also recently presented BBC Two’s Battle of Jutland: The Navy’s Bloodiest War.

Shini completed two degrees in Mechanical Engineering and an Computational Fluid Dynamics by the age of 24.

She then began her career consulting on a number of pioneering engineering projects from medical and environmental to pediatric applications.

Whilst engineering, Shini also pursued her passion for science communication by delivering talks in schools. She loves encouraging students of all ages, particularly girls, into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM), just as her own father (also a mechanical engineer) had done with her.

Andy Torbet is an underwater explorer, technical diver, skydiver, climber, kayaker and extreme adventurer.

Andy spent 10 years in the British Forces as a Diver, Paratrooper and Bomb Disposal Officer. During his time he was deployed on operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Andy has been a regular adventure presenter on The One Show where he raced a Peregrine Falcon in free-fall achieving speeds in excess of 240mph.

He has also presented The People Remember and Operation Iceberg on BBC One — and has been presenter and cameraman on the BBC Two series Landward and The Adventure Show: Cave of Skulls.

Andy is an accomplished and respected underwater explorer with a high level of skill and experience in deep, technical and cave diving which has taken him all over the globe.

He has mapped new submerged cave systems, discovered a number of lost shipwrecks from World War Two in the cold, dark water of the English Channel to 18th Century warships off uninhabited islands in Southern Patagonia.