“We worked with him on the script, obviously, the voiceover scripts, and then it gets to the day when you’re going to do it and when he records, he records it in one go. So you press start, he reads it and then press stop.

“There’s a few pickups afterwards and what have you, but basically, it’s like having the world’s best storyteller reading you a bedtime story of the images that you’ve spent years creating. It’s just absolutely magical.”

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Executive producer Mike Gunton, who has worked with Attenborough on Dynasties, Planet Earth II and Life among other programmes, said that Prehistoric Planet season 2 features one of the broadcaster’s “best narrations”.

“And I’ve done a lot,” he said. “These are some of the best narrations he’s ever done and it’s been an absolute pleasure to work with him because he’s brought such enthusiasm to it.”

He continued: “In fact, when we did the very last commentary recording of the last of this series, he said, ‘Great – well, that’s fantastic. So when’s the next one?’ and I said, ‘Well that’s it, David. That’s the last one.’

“He said, ‘No, it can’t be, this makes my week when I get a new one of these coming through.’ I think he’s fascinated in the subject anyway. To be honest, how could you ever do this without him? It just would not be the same.”

Season 2 of Prehistoric Planet is set to introduce never-before-seen apex predators based on new studies, herbivores like the Tarchia and giant ocean-dwellers like the Mosasaurus.