This is the story of the first zoo in history, a weird and wonderful oasis in the heart of the filthy, swirling city of Dickensian London, and of the incredible characters, both human and animal, that populated it - from Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria to Obaysch the celebrity hippo, the first that anyone in Britain had ever seen. This is a story of Victorian grandeur, of science and empire, and of adventurers and charlatans And it is the story of a dizzying age of Empire and industrialization, a time of change unmatched before or since This is the extraordinary story of London Zoo. Chaired by Isaac Florence.