Wildlife Filmmaker Gordon Buchanan comes to Shrewsbury with his Lions and Tigers and Bears tour in February 2026
Pictured: Gordon Buchanan
“We’ve got a primal fear of Lions and Tigers and Bears… But we welcome them into our homes” says wildlife filmmaker Gordon Buchanan ahead of 2026 tour.
Gordon Buchanan has had more cause than most to exclaim “Oh my!” in a career that’s charted the lives of some of nature’s most charismatic beasts, who have in turn inspired his latest live tour Lions and Tigers and Bears, which comes to Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury on 9 February 2026.
Wonderfully well timed, given the hugely successful Wicked cinematic releases, Gordon took inspiration for his tour from the iconic movie The Wizard of Oz and the famous line “Lions, and tigers, and bears… Oh my!”
Hailed as Scotland’s own David Attenborough, Gordon Buchanan has most recently been seen tracking lions, leopards and cheetahs in Botswana, for BBC One’s Big Cats 24/7 – with series two on screens early next year, and filming on series three recently completed.
“I’m really excited about doing the tour again! 2025 has been a crazy year, starting with the first outing of the tour, and I’ve rounded it off with filming again in Botswana, then also in Kenya, and now I can count down to the first show back on tour,” he said.
“I’m very spoilt seeing lions and tigers and bears in the wild – so it’s exciting to have the opportunity to tour the country and share these stories with thousands of people, being able to give them a sense of what it is like to get up close to polars in the Arctic, how fast you need to run to escape a sloth bear and what it’s like to bottle feed grizzlies.
“Knowing that the show has been a success, and that audiences had a great time, makes it easier to prepare and look forward to going back out there. One of the joys of a live tour is seeing people leaving with a smile on their face, having had a fun, inspiring and uplifting evening, and I can’t wait to experience that again.
And he’s got a theory why people continue to be fascinated by big cats and bears.
“These iconic creatures are seen as these predators who are out to get us,” Gordon explains. “And with that comes a primal fear which dates back to the caveman – when our biggest fears weren’t job security and mortgage repayments, but actually surviving those big animals with teeth and claws.
“Going back into pre-history, humans lived alongside lions and bears – using knowledge and fear to stay safe.
“But funnily, these animals are also welcomed into our homes. Go into any family home and there will be a number of bears… We still have a big box of teddies from when the kids were small, and there are lions and tigers among them as well.
“Bears have infiltrated our lives – think Paddington, Rupert, Fozzie! Even Gentle Ben way back on TV – not that that featured the job as such, but I remember watching and thinking that’s what I want to be, up close with the bear, and it represented wild parts of the world for me.”
Gordon Buchanan photo by Graham Macfarlane
Lions and Tigers and Bears with Gordon Buchanan 2026 tour starts in January and comes to Theatre Severn on Monday February 9 – tickets available here: www.theatresevern.co.uk
