Wildlife presenter Michaela Strachan has written a children’s book of poems which she has turned into a stage show. Chris Price caught up with her.

Whether fronting Autumnwatch, the Really Wild Show or the Hit Man and Her, Michaela Strachan has always looked comfortable on screen.

The bubbly animal enthusiast admits she feels extremely lucky that her career “has grown up as I’ve grown up” – from brief pop career to travelling the world bringing wild creatures to the nation’s living rooms.

How nice it must be, then, to look back on her journeys across the globe, as she performs her poems about polar bears, snakes and orphan rhinos as part of a new stage show.

“They are literally snapshots of my career,” said Michaela, 46, speaking just after broadcasting live on BBC2 from the Scottish Highlands for Winterwatch.

“Let me take you on a story,” she said jokingly, explaining her book was inspired by the style of Gruffalo and Room on the Broom writer Julia Donaldson.

Notably, both of those have been made into successful stage and TV shows. The crossover potential is easy to see as mother-of-one Michaela reads a sample of her work – which is as happy and smily as she is. Picture children getting up on stage, firing water pistols to try to ‘outspit’ a spitting cobra or helping to ‘remove teeth’ from a hapless dad plucked from the audience, dressed as a polar bear, set to the tune of Wild Thing (that really is the plan, honest.)

Her first poem, Elephants in Blankets, was inspired by BBC programme Elephant Diaries but the one she proudly reads is Omni and Digby, taken from a report on the Really Wild Show, about two orphans – a warthog and a rhino – who foster an unlikely friendship in a sanctuary.

She reads it out with complete professionalism, as if presenting to her childhood fans. Of course, those days of children’s presenting are long behind her, after the Really Wild Show was axed in 2006. Various other TV gigs followed but replacing Kate Humble on Springwatch and Autumnwatch has made her a fixture on TV screens once again.

Remembered by many as something of a dish on the children’s TV schedule, perhaps this show will have the odd dad in the audience watching his childhood crush with his own children. The question brings Michaela out of her shell.“I don’t care why they come as long as they come,” she said.

“I find it highly amusing, particularly when I look back at the ridiculous things I was wearing. I remember being on the Wide Awake Club in the late 1980s early 1990s and wonder how anyone could have had a crush on someone wearing Batman boots, some dreadful leggings a ra ra skirt, ribbons in my hair and massive earrings.”

Those youthful days were not always straightforward. Michaela revealed how she suffered with eczema and other allergies in her 20s, which made preparing for pieces to camera more difficult.

She said: “It is a problem if you have got itchy eyes and you are on TV. I was really working flat out in those days. I was hardly ever at home. It was the right age to be doing that sort of thing. I was always travelling somewhere but the combination meant my health wasn’t very good and it gave me eczema.

“I don’t think I ate very healthily in those days. Now I am very aware – I am vegetarian and we have a vegetable garden and I cook a lot – but certainly in my early 20s I did not think about that.”

Then there has been the life of jet-setting to film wildlife, which carries its own guilt as mother of Oliver, seven, who lives with her in South Africa with her partner Nick Chevallier and his three grown-up children.

“It has been my life ever since I have been working in television,” she said. “Some people find my way of life ridiculous and extraordinary but it has always been my way of life – I have always been getting on planes and going somewhere away from home.

“It is a lot harder when you have a child but I balance it out. If I am away for a couple of weeks, when I get home I am a full-on mum.

"Maybe I am making excuses so I feel less guilty – as a mother you always feel guilty if you are not there – but if I had a nine to five job I would probably see less of my child.”

Michaela Strachan brings her live show from her new book to Tunbridge Wells’ Assembly Hall Theatre on Tuesday, April 9 at 1.30pm. Tickets £12. Box office 01892 530613.

She will also be signing copies of her book Michaela Strachan’s Really Wild Adventures at Waterstones in Bluewater on Tuesday, April 9, from 4.30pm. Call 01322 624831.